Find the Way Home
by Kathy Rose
Summary: Enterprise comes across a derelict ship while charting an unknown sector of space. That's when strange things start happening.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: I've always been fascinated by paranormal experiences. I've had a few such experiences, as well as having had a number of what might be called precognitive dreams. I was watching a TV program the other day on the topic of haunted houses, and wondered -- what if something like that happened on _Enterprise_?

Thank you, Kylie Lee, for a great beta!

CHAPTER ONE

The bridge crew held its collective breath as details of the object on the main viewscreen became clearer. The small ship was old. The hull was pitted and streaked. In some places, the dull undercoat was visible. Not a light shone from the craft. It was as dark and cold and lifeless as the space around it.

Captain Jonathan Archer, seated in his command chair, was as mesmerized by the sight in front of him as were the rest of those on the bridge. "T'Pol?" he asked.

"It's a one-person Earth ship," the Vulcan first officer responded. She looked up from her science station. "It is of a type that was customarily used for courier duties between Earth and its fledgling colonies, or for private transportation."

"It's got to be at least sixty years old," Jon said.

"Wouldn't they have wanted bigger ships?" asked Ensign Hoshi Sato from communications. "If you had to travel long distances, you might as well make it worth your while and haul supplies while you're at it."

Jon nodded in agreement but said, "But there were some things that couldn't wait until a big shipment was ready. Vital medicines, for one thing. And subspace communication wasn't as reliable as it is today. They often carried important documents or other information." He spun his chair to the left to face T'Pol. "Can you tell what ship it is?"

"No. The area of the hull where the registry number would be displayed has corroded," she said. She pushed a few buttons on her console, and a portion of the ship's bow was magnified on the main screen. The hull in that area was badly pocked. Any identifying symbols that might have been there were no longer in evidence. "We will have to board the ship to find out."

Jon rose to his feet, an anticipatory gleam in his eye. "T'Pol and Malcolm, you're with me. Hoshi, tell Trip to meet us in the launch bay. We'll take a shuttlepod over."

As the most senior officers left the bridge, Hoshi paged the chief engineer and relayed the captain's order. That task accomplished, she looked once more at the viewscreen where the lifeless ship was displayed.

From his seat at the helm, Ensign Travis Mayweather said, "This would make a great ghost story."

Hoshi smiled tolerantly at his flight of fancy. "It's just an old ship. It probably broke down here and no one was around to help." She paused, considering the ship on the screen. "It's rather tragic."

"Most ghost stories are," Travis said. With an impudent smile, he added, "It's only the ones I tell around campfires that are scary."

Hoshi laughed and turned her attention back to her console. She saw the test signal from the shuttlepod. With the push of a button, she acknowledged that she could receive the 'pod's communications. That done, she returned her gaze to the viewscreen. It would be interesting to find out what the captain and the others learned about that ship. She was almost relieved that she hadn't been picked to be a member of the boarding party, for she knew there might be bodies on the old ship. Definitely not one of her favorite things to come across.

At his console, Travis was checking some readings. He would be excited about this, Hoshi realized. He had a fondness for space mysteries. Travis probably was wishing that he'd been asked to pilot the shuttlepod, but there was only so much room on a ship the size of the one they'd encountered. The captain had invoked his privilege as most senior officer to investigate, T'Pol would be needed for her scientific expertise as would be Trip for his engineering skills, and Malcolm -- well, Malcolm was along in case there were any boobytraps or other dangerous surprises.

Travis was probably just as bored as she was, and this unexpected discovery helped alleviate the tedium of their current mission of mapping an uncharted region of space. That didn't mean the area hadn't been traveled by humans, but neither Earth nor Vulcan had accurate star charts of the area. Now that the Xindi threat had been taken care of and the Terra Prime movement repressed, there was time to do such mundane activities such as space mapping. It provided a nice change of pace, but it eventually became boring. No wonder the discovery of a derelict vessel had piqued everyone's curiosity.

The old ship might be a relic of the time when people from Earth first started colonizing other worlds. Some of those colonies hadn't fared well. Terra Nova was a good example. During the first year after its launch, _Enterprise _had been sent to discover what had become of Earth's first colony outside the solar system, which long ago had ceased communications. Radiation had altered the colonists' physiology and forced them to live underground, where they'd lost most of the technology they'd brought with them and had to grub out an existence. To make the story even more tragic, the people on Terra Nova thought that their condition was the result of an attack by a second group of colonists; hence, the cessation of communications with Earth.

Hoshi wouldn't be surprised if the ship on the viewscreen had a similar history tied to a failed colony. If she remembered her history lessons correctly, there had been one or two early colonization efforts by private groups to this region. Or, it could have been an intrepid explorer who had struck off on his own and, encountering difficulties of some kind, had died alone in the vastness of space. Whatever the case, it seemed incredibly sad that someone had to die alone under such circumstances.

She shook herself. She didn't need to be thinking such depressing thoughts. The ship may simply have been abandoned, its crew rescued by another ship. They'd know for sure when the captain and the others returned.

* * *

Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, dressed in an EV suit, was the first to step from the shuttlepod's airlock to the other ship. Behind him, he knew T'Pol was taking atmospheric and life sign readings with her scanner. Even without the information she was gathering, he could tell from what he was seeing by the light of his hand torch that no living thing had been on this ship in a long time. 

There was no gravity in the small compartment they'd entered, and a few small items drifted aimlessly out of the darkness as his movements disturbed the air. There were streaks of condensation on the bulkhead closest to him; the integrity of the ship's hull must still be intact, else the moisture would have been sucked out into space. Nowhere in the limited range of the beam of his torch could he see any equipment that had power. Everything looked dead.

He moved to one side, the solid anchoring of his magnetized boots to the deck reassuring, although each step was made awkward by the effort to pull his foot up with sufficient force to disrupt the magnetic attraction. The captain was the next to enter, followed by T'Pol, and then Trip, who let out a whistle as he saw the interior.

T'Pol's voice crackled over the speaker in Malcolm's helmet. "Oxygen content of the atmosphere is depleted."

"I haven't seen something like this since I visited the historical space flight museum at Starfleet in San Francisco," Trip said almost reverently.

Malcolm moved farther into the small compartment. They appeared to be in a combined engine and cargo area which also served as an airlock. Across the compartment was a hatch. They'd have to go through that to reach the rest of the ship.

"Come on," Jon said. "You can sightsee later, Trip. Let's find the the control center."

"Shouldn't be hard," Trip responded. "This ship isn't much more than twice the size of a shuttlepod."

Malcolm studied the hatch as he approached it. It had a rotary wheel similar to what was in use on some of _Enterprise's _hatches. Making sure he was securely anchored by his magnetized boots to the deck, he grasped the wheel and turned it. To his surprise, it moved easily. A few more turns, and the hatch opened with only a slight tug on his part. He cast a glance at Jon, who nodded for the tactical officer to go first.

Malcolm stepped through into another small compartment. This looked like a living area, albeit a very cramped one. A bunk, some built-in cabinets, a tiny kitchen area. After his cursory glance around the area, he moved toward another hatch on the far side of the compartment, his movements slow and ponderous under the effects of zero g and the bulk of the EV suit. He could hear the others behind him, their breathing sounding raspy in his helmet.

"Nobody home," he heard Trip say in a hushed tone as if he was unwilling to disturb the silence.

To judge from the size of the vessel, the next compartment had to be the last. They'd been working their way from the stern to the bow, and had found the engine and living quarters, so the next compartment had to be the cockpit; on a ship this small, it could hardly be called a bridge. Malcolm wouldn't be surprised if all four of the boarding party wouldn't be able to fit in it at the same time.

Normally not given to superstition, Malcolm mentally braced himself nonetheless. If they were to find the remains of anyone on board, this would be the place. If he had to die alone in space, he'd prefer to be in the pilot's chair where he could watch the stars as his life ebbed away. He shook his head to bannish the gloomy thought, and the discomfort of the movement in the heavy EV suit helped clear his mind. He opened the hatch, stepped in, and stopped. The cockpit was smaller than his cabin's bathroom back on _Enterprise_, with the chair for the pilot directly in front of him facing a large viewport.

Someone was in the pilot's chair.

A tangle of dark hair was visible above the headrest and, from his vantage point, Malcolm could see an arm lying on the chair's armrest. He took a deep breath, knowing when he moved farther into the small cockpit that he would see a sight that wouldn't be pleasant. He took one step and was as far forward as he could go in the suffocatingly small confines of the cockpit.

Over his helmet's speaker, Malcolm heard someone's breath catch. It was the captain's, for a quick glance at Jon showed he was staring at the pilot's chair.

"Poor bastard," Jon muttered.

T'Pol managed to squeeze into the compartment behind Jon. With three of them in there, it was a tight fit. A sudden sense of unease swept over Malcolm. The place reminded him of a tomb. If it would have been possible to move past Jon and T'Pol out of the cockpit, he would have. He'd been looking at the pilot -- a man dressed in an old-style flight suit topped by a jacket and whose features had dessicated to a mummy-like appearance with the ravages of time -- but he quickly shifted his gaze to the instrument panel as T'Pol used the scanner.

"Human," she reported.

"If you let me in there," came Trip's voice, "I'll see if any of the systems have any juice left. If not, we'll have to set up a portable generator to download any information from the ship's systems."

Malcolm looked up in time to see a strange expression flit across Jon's face. He realized the captain was as uncomfortable as he was being crowded in around this long-dead space traveller.

"I have a better idea," Jon said.

Jon motioned for T'Pol to exit the cockpit, and as soon as she stepped out, he followed. Malcolm took one last glance at the body in the chair and made his way to the hatch.

"This ship is small enough that it should fit in our launch bay," Jon said as the four of them stood grouped together in the living area. "We'll bring it on board. It will be easier that way to take a better look at it." He paused. "And we can make arrangements for the body."

No one said anything as they made their way back through the old ship to the shuttlepod.


	2. Chapter 2

A.N.: Thank you all for the reviews! Much appreciated!

CHAPTER 2

_Enterprise's _grapplers latched onto the old ship and reeled it into the launch bay. Once the bay was repressurized, Doctor Phlox was the first to enter the ship, but only after sufficient ventilation allowed the depleted oxygen content to be replaced. T'Pol and Trip waited in respectful silence in the launch bay as the body of the pilot was carried out on a stretcher. Phlox would perform an autopsy as a matter of routine. Between that and any information the ship's logs might divulge, they should be able to discover how he had come to die in an uncharted sector of space.

T'Pol was the next to enter the craft so that she could download any flight logs or recorded data. With assistance from Trip and the power from a portable generator, she managed to coax the old equipment into transferring its information onto a data disk more compatible with current technology.

When T'Pol went to _Enterprise's _bridge to use the science station to review the data, Trip stayed behind to make a leisurely inspection of the small craft. The hull was badly scratched and dented, but it was nothing that the right tools and a little elbow grease wouldn't fix, he mused. The engine, as he'd noted on his first visit, was a compact Warp 2 model. Common in its day, it had had a reputation of being reliable. He'd already surmised that engine failure hadn't been the cause of this particular tragedy. There were a number of deep impact marks near the exhaust manifolds. He was willing to bet that the ship had been hit by something which had damaged the propulsion system and had forced the pilot to shut down the engine.

He spent some time in the engineering compartment where he ran his hands lovingly over the old machinery as he admired it. From what he could tell, it had been well maintained. It was possible it would still work, once the problem that had caused it to be shut down was fixed. Trip smiled to himself. He might just have a project to keep himself occupied while they charted this area of space. Mapping unknown space was all well and good for someone like T'Pol, he thought wryly, but when there was no contact with other species or even the opportunity to take an excursion on a hospitable planet, there wasn't much for the rest of the crew to do.

He moved into the next compartment and halted just across the threshold. Poking around the engine room had been one thing; snooping around in here was another. The living quarters were not absolutely essential to the operation of the ship, and was a more private setting. Trip felt like an intruder. But it was the only way to get to the main controls in the cockpit. With a silent apology to the person who had lived and died on the ship, he made his way to the hatch on the far side of the compartment without investigating the cabin.

He grasped the hatch wheel firmly and gave it a twist. It spun without making a sound. Despite having been unused in years, the mechanism was well lubricated and turned easily. That only reinforced his belief that the ship had been well maintained. Shifting his grip, he pulled on the wheel to open the hatch.

For a brief moment, just as the hatch seal released and he began to pull the door open, Trip could have sworn he sensed something. He paused, trying to pin down what it was. It had been like a gentle breeze coming from the cockpit, brushing across his forehead and ruffling his hair. The hair on the back of his neck prickled as he suddenly felt cold. He quickly looked over his shoulder at the living area. Nothing there seemed to be disturbed.

He shivered at the residual coldness, and then scolded himself for his foolishness. This would be a perfect setting for one of Travis' ghost stories. Who wouldn't be spooked in an atmosphere like this?

Still, the cockpit had been opened the first time they'd set foot on this ship, and any difference in air pressure between the compartments should have equalized then. Maybe there was some equipment still operating that they'd overlooked or had accidentally been turned on that accounted for the air current. He'd find out when he started poking around at the controls.

* * *

"It is the _Wayfarer's Rest_." 

The irony of derelict ship's name, stated matter-of-factly by T'Pol, was not lost on the other officers gathered around the situation table at the back of the bridge. Hoshi made a soft sound of commiseration before T'Pol continued her report.

"The body is that of Robert Watson, the owner of the ship. According to the data we were able to retrieve, he was returning from Earth after a visit to recruit additional colonists for Vega colony, which was established only three years before."

"Vega colony was abandoned about fifty years ago, wasn't it?" Jon asked.

T'Pol nodded. "Yes. It was a private colonization effort, but the logistics of setting up the colony, in particular obtaining necessary supplies, proved to be too much. The colonists returned to Earth." T'Pol resumed her report after a glance at the information on the screen of the situation table. "Watson's original purpose in visiting Earth was to lead several other ships back to Vega. He cut short his visit to Earth and set out to return on his own, however, when he received a message that his wife and small child at the colony were seriously ill."

Trip took up the report. "Small, one-man vessels from that era had certain vulnerabilities. They had to rely on automated systems when the pilot needed to sleep, for one thing. Turns out the proximity alarm on Watson's ship had failed, and he didn't know it until he was tossed out of his bunk by the impact of several small asteroids. They hit the area around the plasma exhaust manifolds." He pointed to a section of the ship's schematic, highlighted in red, displayed on the table. "The propulsion system was compromised, and he had to shut down the engine."

"Couldn't he repair--?" Travis started to ask, but stopped. It was obvious to all of them that the pilot of the _Wayfarer's Rest _hadn't been able to fix his ship. _Enterprise _wouldn't have found it drifting in space if he had. Travis rephrased his question. "Why couldn't he repair it?"

Malcolm gazed at the damaged portions of the ship on the display. "The damage was extensive. I don't know if one person alone could have fixed it."

When there were no further comments, T'Pol took up the story again. "Watson had no choice but to shut down the engine. If it continued to operate, the build-up of plasma exhaust would have eventually led to an explosion. He determined the best course of action would be to send a distress signal and wait for help to arrive."

"But it didn't," Hoshi said quietly.

Trip nodded, his eyes somber. "Watson didn't know when he shut down the engine that his communications array on the outer hull had also been torn away by the impact. He had no way to call for help. And there's a failsafe built into that particular engine. Once shut down, it can't be restarted until the problem that led to the shutdown is fixed."

T'Pol finished the report. "Certain systems on the _Wayfarer's Rest_, including the air recyclers, could operate for a time on battery power, but that eventually was exhausted. The autopsy conducted by Doctor Phlox indicates Watson died from lack of breathable air after the recyclers no longer had sufficient power to operate."

"How long did he have before...?" Travis asked. The helmsman looked uncomfortable, unable to finish the question despite his curiosity.

T'Pol answered in her usual non-emotional tone, although her voice was pitched low as if she too was affected by the sad circumstances of the pilot's death. "Watson's last log entry was seventeen days after he shut down the engine. In that log, he mentions that he was beginning to feel the effects of oxygen deprivation."

There was silence around the table as those present absorbed the tragic misfortune of Watson's last few days. There were always dangers inherent in space travel, but over the years, improvements in technology had made it less dangerous. Those first people to travel any great distance from Earth had possessed a special kind of courage and determination. Sometimes, however, as was the case with Watson, that wasn't enough.

Jon turned to Hoshi and said quietly, "Contact the proper authorities on Earth. See if there are any living relatives of Robert Watson, and if so, what their wishes are concerning his remains." She nodded, and Jon let his gaze travel across the rest of his officers. "Dismissed."

As the others began to move away, Trip remained behind. "Cap'n? Would you mind if I did some tinkering with that ship?"

"Don't tell me you're bored, too," Jon said.

"You have to admit," Trip said, "that mapping a relatively empty region of space isn't one of the more exciting things we get to do. And I think I can get it running again."

Jon hesitated. If Robert Watson did have relatives, they might want to claim the little craft. There was the issue of property ownership to consider, although Starfleet could claim rights to it under salvage laws.

"Tell you what," he said at last. "You go ahead and tinker to your heart's delight, but it may be that we wind up turning it over to Watson's family."

Trip bounced on the balls of his feet. "If they don't want it, it would make a fine addition to Starfleet's historical museum," he said. "Thanks, Cap'n."

Trip turned for the turbolift, his thoughts already on what he should fix first on the little ship.

* * *

Malcolm, data PADD in hand, entered the launch bay. He could tell that Trip was already hard at work. Power lines snaked across the deck and through the open outer hatch of the _Wayfarer's Rest_. From around the other side of the little craft came the sound of dull clanking. 

He carefully stepped over the lines and made his way around the hull to find Trip perched on a ladder. The engineer, wearing a welding helmet with the visor up, was putting down a hammer and reaching for a cutting torch when Malcolm came into view.

"I thought you were going to fix it -- not tear it apart," Malcolm said sardonically.

Trip shifted on the ladder to look down at Malcolm. "Shows how much you know. A couple of these hull plates are gonna have to be replaced." He put a hand up to pull the protective visor into place but paused. "Is there a reason you came by to see me?"

Malcolm held up the PADD. "This. I did some digging and found the original specs for this class of ship."

A grin split Trip's face as he set the torch aside and clambered down the ladder. He took the PADD from Malcolm and said, "You old dog! You want to help with this."

"You're not the only one going bonkers with nothing to do." Malcolm sighed heavily. "Much as it pains me to say it, there are only so many times I can bring myself to realign the targeting scanners or recalibrate the torpedoes when I know they don't need it."

Trip, who had activated the PADD and was scrolling through the information on the screen, looked up and said, "You know you're more than welcome to help, but there isn't any weaponry on this ship."

"I don't care," Malcolm said. "That's how bored I am."

Trip laughed and clapped Malcolm on the shoulder. The engineer turned back to the ladder and started climbing up. "All right, then. I'll get that section of the hull loose and hand it down to you."

* * *

Travis and Hoshi were seated at a table in the mess hall eating dinner. The two junior officers, like many of the crew, were enjoying a leisurely meal without the pressure of a looming crisis hanging over their heads. Their current mission to map this uncharted section of space was responsible for that. While Hoshi appreciated the chance to go about her day-to-day activities without any extra anxiety, she knew some of the others were becoming restless. 

"Look who finally showed up," Travis said, pointing with his fork toward the mess hall entrance. "I haven't seen them since the briefing this morning."

Hoshi, in the middle of taking a sip of her lemonade, shifted her eyes to see Trip and Malcolm heading for the serving cabinets. She swallowed and said, "They've got a new toy to keep them busy."

"I wouldn't call that ship a toy," Travis said, "but I know what you're saying. Lucky guys."

There was an envious note in Travis' voice. Hoshi knew he was just as restless as everyone else, despite the extra recreational activities scheduled lately. The lure of a long-lost ship had to be vastly more appealing to Travis than tonight's trivia contest, considering his penchant for unsolved space mysteries. "Why don't you ask if you can help them?" she suggested.

Travis returned his attention to his meal. "I don't want to horn in."

"Yes, you do," Hoshi contradicted him with a smile. "Ask them. I'm sure they won't mind another set of hands helping out."

Before Travis could respond, Trip and Malcolm joined them at their table. Hoshi gave Travis an encouraging nod as the two officers took their seats. She saw the helmsman take a deep breath, but before he could say anything, Trip said, "We were wonderin', Travis... Would you like to help with the _Wayfarer's Rest_?"

Travis' face lit up. "I'd really like that, sir. It's like a piece of living history to get to see something like that, much less work on it." He dug into his lasagna vigorously, garnering chuckles from the others at the table at his enthusiasm.

"Slow down, Travis, before you choke," Malcolm cautioned. "We're finished for today, but if you can get the captain's permission to be away from your post, we'll be in the launch bay at the beginning of alpha shift tomorrow."

Travis, his mouth full, grinned sheepishly.

Trip began cutting into the steak on his plate. "How about you, Hoshi? You want to help?" He popped a piece of steak into his mouth and chewed as he waited while she considered the offer.

She knew Trip was only been being polite by asking if she wanted to help. Hoshi let her gaze roam around the table. Travis was excited about the prospect of working on the little ship, Malcolm was absorbed in his meal although she knew he was listening to the conversation, and Trip was patiently waiting for her answer. But she really had no interest in renovating an old ship. "If you need some help with its communications system, let me know, but otherwise, I think not. Working on a ship where the last occupant was a dead body doesn't appeal to me."

"Afraid there's a ghost?" Travis teased.

"That's not why I don't want to help," Hoshi protested, bracing herself for the good-natured teasing that was sure to follow Travis' comment.

Trip cleared his throat. "Speakin' of ghosts... Something weird happened this morning when I was on that ship." When no one said anything, he looked up from his dinner to see three pairs of eyes on him.

"What happened?" Travis asked.

Trip told them about the draft of cold air, and that his inspection of the cockpit had revealed nothing that could have caused it. "But what was really strange was, right after I felt cold, I was sure someone was behind me in the living quarters."

"There wasn't, of course," Malcolm said. Narrowing his eyes, he asked suspiciously, "You're not making this up, are you?"

As Trip shook his head, Travis said, "Cold spots are an indication of ghostly activity. In cases of paranormal events, there are often areas that are cold for no reason. It's one of the first things anybody who goes ghost hunting should do -- check for cold spots. And changes in EM fields."

"That ship is not haunted," Malcolm said. "It was a figment of the commander's imagination."

Trip shook his head again. "I felt that breeze, Malcolm. And the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I'm not sayin' there was a ghost, but _something _caused me to feel that."

"You were chilled and got goosebumps," Malcolm said reasonably, although there was a stubborn edge to his voice.

Hoshi knew that the discussion would soon deteriorate into a debate. She pushed back from the table. "Have fun with the ship, boys."

They barely noticed her departure as they began arguing about whether there were such things as ghosts.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

Doctor Phlox had been around dead bodies before. It was unavoidable in his line of work. Like any good doctor, he tried to maintain a professional, detached demeanor when death was involved. There had been times when he'd felt regret for a life cut short, or in rare cases, rage that a person's life had been ended under circumstances that could have been prevented if not for someone else's negligence. But on the whole, he prided himself in being able to not let death affect him so much that it interfered with his duties or his own mental well-being.

For some reason, however, this latest dead body made him uneasy. He had finished the autopsy this afternoon and had put the body in a morgue locker until arrangements for its disposal could be made. Now, near midnight, Phlox was sitting alone in sickbay going over reports. For the last hour or so, however, he had felt compelled to make sure the body was where he'd left it. He likened the feeling to an itch that needed to be scratched.

Phlox put down the stylus he'd been using to initial the reports. He knew he wouldn't get any work done until he satisfied his curiosity, no matter how irrational it seemed. He'd go to the morgue compartment, check on its only occupant, and get this nagging suspicion out of his mind. He should be able to concentrate on his reports after that.

As he walked along through corridors dimmed in keeping with the diurnal rhythm of the human crew, he told himself that sometimes the mind acted in ways that were unfathomable to logic. Perhaps it was the crew's preoccupation with the _Wayfarer's Rest _causing his own inexplicable behavior right now. He knew it was silly to be doing this -- the man had been dead for more than fifty years and wasn't likely to go anywhere on his own at this point -- but the sooner he satisfied whatever fragment of his subconscious that was clamoring at him to check, the sooner he could get back to work.

Phlox input his access code at the entrance to the morgue compartment and walked inside. He reached for the drawer where the body was stored. His hand on the handle, the Denobulan knew what he would see when he pulled the drawer open: Human male, age forty-two, in good health until the accident that had robbed him of life. Robert Watson's death had been tragic, to be sure, but no more so than that of many other unfortunate beings. The universe could be cruel. No one knew that better than Phlox, whose unflagging optimism helped him cope with the reality of the dangers of living and working in space.

He chided himself for his maudlin thoughts as he started to slide open the drawer. It wasn't even close to his time of hiberation, so that couldn't be the cause of his uncharacteristic gloominess. Maybe he should take a cue from the rest of the crew during this charting mission and add some recreational activities to his routine. Crewman Rostov from Engineering was getting together two teams to play basketball, and he'd been approached about participating in that peculiar sport. Word of his prowess when the senior officers had played a pick-up game must have gotten around, although he was still trying to figure out why it was called "pick-up." As far as Phlox knew, that term was used to describe a common premating ritual among--

Phlox blinked as the shroud-covered body came into view. For a moment as he was pulling out the drawer, he thought he'd detected movement on the slab. Resisting the urge to step back, he slowly reached out and took hold of the edge of the covering. With a quick flick of his wrist, he pulled back the covering to reveal just what he'd expected to see -- the face of a person who had been dead for quite some time.

With an uneasy chuckle at his nervousness, Phlox replaced the covering. It must have been a shadow he'd seen. He hadn't bothered to increase the lighting when he'd entered the morgue compartment since he was only going to be here a few minutes at most and he could see well enough despite the dimness. With a more confident chuckle, he closed the drawer. He couldn't wait to tell Travis Mayweather about this experience. Maybe the helmsman could make up another ghost story that he so delighted in telling, Phlox thought as he turned away and left the compartment.

Behind him in the morgue, a shadow moved.on one of the walls.

* * *

The sound of low growling penetrated Jon's sleep-fogged brain. He rolled on to his stomach to look at the clock on the shelf at the head of his bed, and groaned. The glowing light indicated it was shortly after midnight.

"Porthos!" he said sternly and then let his head flop face-down on his pillow. He had started to drift off to sleep again when he realized the growling hadn't stopped. If anything, it had gotten louder.

Jon lifted his head and forced his eyes open once more. "Porthos! Bad dog!" he said.

As the growling continued, Jon peered around his dark quarters but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary in the weak starlight coming through the viewport. He reached up and flicked on the reading light over his bed.

Porthos wasn't in his dog bed at the foot of his bunk. The beagle was halfway across the cabin, legs splayed to hold him up stiffly, the hackles standing up on the back of his neck. Jon had no idea why Porthos was carrying on like this in the middle of the night. From what he could tell, Porthos was staring at an empty space in the center of the cabin.

"Porthos! Stop it!"

The beagle gave no indication that he'd heard the command. As the growling went on, Jon sighed in resignation. He threw off his blanket and sat up. As he swung his legs over the edge of the bunk, Porthos suddenly yelped and ran to Jon's bunk, jumping up onto the mattress to cower next to him.

Jon ran a hand down Porthos back and was surprised to find the dog was trembling. "It's okay, Porthos," he said. "You were probably having a bad dream."

Porthos whimpered and snuggled closer. Not once did the dog look up at him or bump his snout against his arm to demand more petting. Instead, Porthos was staring fixedly across the cabin.

Jon murmured soft words as he continued to pet Porthos. Eventually, the little dog calmed, snuffling several times before relaxing completely, and put his head down on his front paws. When Jon made to lift the dog down to the deck, Porthos immediately scooted toward the center of the bed and whimpered.

"All right," Jon said. "Just this once. But you're not going to make a habit of it."

Jon reached over and turned off the light. He slipped under the blanket. A few seconds later, he felt Porthos move to the end of the bed and curl up on his feet.

* * *

T'Pol required less sleep than her human shipmates. Often she would utilize the quiet of the night shift to aid her meditation. There were no extraneous noises to distract her as she sat cross-legged, eyes closed, on the deck in her cabin, and she always closed the ventilation grill for the duration of her meditation so that no unpleasant smells would disturb her. The only light was that of a candle flame in front of her.

A sudden unaccustomed chill made her shiver. She must have forgotten to raise the temperature setting in her cabin when she'd returned from dinner this evening. The possibility that she had actually forgotten to do something that was a part of her daily routine was enough to send a small ripple of concern through the serenity of her contemplation. She opened her eyes to gaze at the flame to refocus her concentration.

The flame wavered wildly, then resumed its steady burning.

T'Pol stared at the candle as she came to the only logical conclusion. She hadn't forgotten to reset the temperature control. Rather, there must be a glitch in the environmental system affecting both heat and ventilation. The flickering flame was evidence of the latter.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, and began her meditation anew, but not before she told herself to inform Commander Tucker in the morning that a diagnostic should be run on B deck's environmental controls.

* * *

Hoshi had dozed off and on since she'd gone to bed, but she hadn't really slept. When she found herself looking at the clock next to her bed for the fourth time, she sat up, only to hear her stomach rumble. No wonder she couldn't sleep. She was hungry.

She hadn't eaten much for dinner. When Trip, Malcolm and Travis had started in on what promised to be an in-depth discussion of the supernatural, there was a distinct possibility that they'd end up in a shouting match. Such discussions between Trip and Malcolm often did. Travis' presence wouldn't have deterred them, because he would only have egged them on. She hadn't wished to referee an argument on a topic that didn't particularly interest her, and so she had left. She'd forgotten that, in anticipation of Chef's cheesecake for dessert, she'd taken small portions for dinner. Unfortunately, she'd also forgotten about dessert.

Breakfast was still four hours away. She couldn't wait that long. There was no way she was going to be able to go back to sleep without getting something to eat. She got out of bed and padded to her closet. As she changed into blue jeans and a tank top, she hoped there would be a piece of cheesecake left when she got to the mess hall. Otherwise, not only was she going to be sleep-deprived, but grumpy as well. She slipped on some canvas sneakers, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and headed out of her cabin.

Hoshi had always found the hours before alpha shift to be quiet in a peaceful sort of way. This time was no different. The lighting was dimmed for the night cycle. Even the normal noises sounded muted, as if the ship itself was trying not to wake the off-shift crewmen who were sleeping. When she strolled down the deserted corridor outside her cabin, she didn't expect to see anyone.

She was somewhat surprised, then, to see someone at the far end of the corridor when she turned the corner nearest to the turbolift. The person had his back to her as he walked away. Just as she reached the turbolift, the man looked over his shoulder at her, but she didn't recognize him. She blinked, trying to clear her sleepy eyes. They'd taken on a few new crewmen the last time they'd been at Earth, and she hadn't met all of them yet. He must be one of them. He probably couldn't sleep either, she mused.

She turned her gaze to the call panel and pressed the button to summon the 'lift. When she glanced back toward the end of the corridor, the man was no longer there. That was strange, she thought. She had no idea where he'd gone. She was sure it had been a man -- he'd been fairly tall with a dark mass of hair. And he'd been wearing a jacket of a style that was long out of date. But that wasn't unusual; many people liked vintage fashions.

The door to the turbolift slid open and she stepped in. As she reached for the control panel, she hesitated. She'd clearly heard the sound of her own footfalls on the deck as she'd walked down the corridor, but she'd heard not a sound from the person she'd seen. He'd been wearing boots, for she had noticed the thick heels, and they should have made even more noise than her rubber-soled sneakers. How he could have disappeared so quickly without her hearing him walk away, she didn't know.

Hoshi shrugged mentally. She must not be all the way awake. All the better, she thought. She'd get her cheesecake and then go back to bed, and maybe she'd get a few hours' sleep before it was time to get ready for her shift.

* * *

No one was in the launch bay during the night shift. The large compartment was quiet, its work lights turned off. _Enterprise's_ two shuttlepods were nestled side by side, their polished metal skins gleaming in the glow of standby lights from equipment in the bay.

Across the bay sat the _Wayfarer's Rest_. As it had been for decades, the little ship was dark and cold.

In the cockpit, the pilot's chair that had been the final resting place of Robert Watson was empty. It had been empty all day. Out of respect for the deceased pilot, or maybe perhaps from superstition, the men tending to the ship hadn't sat in it.

If there had been anyone in the launch bay, and they'd happened to look at the chair at that moment, they might have seen the seat cushion slowly compress, as if someone who had had a tiring day was slowly sitting down and taking his ease.

But there was no one there. No one living, that is.


	4. Chapter 4

A.N.: Thanks for the reviews. I didn't realize so many people liked ghost stories.

CHAPTER FOUR

Crew members were trickling into the mess hall for breakfast the next morning when Trip ran into Travis outside the entrance. The younger man looked much too bright and chipper for this time of the day, at least for Trip before he'd had a cup of coffee.

"Morning, Travis," he said amiably enough. "You ready to start working on our little project?"

Travis grinned exuberantly. "I can hardly wait. My schedule is cleared so I can help all day."

Trip laughed as he opened the door to the mess hall. "You're going to have to wait until after breakfast. I don't function well on an empty stomach." He glanced around the mess hall as they stepped in. A good number of alpha shift crew members were already there, including Malcolm and Hoshi seated with Phlox at a table by one of the windows. Trip turned to Travis and said, "I'm supposed to have breakfast with the captain today, so I'll see you in the launch bay after that."

Travis nodded and headed off at a brisk pace toward the serving line. Trip strolled across the mess hall and entered the captain's private dining room. The steward hadn't started serving, Trip noticed as he took his place between the captain and T'Pol at the table. T'Pol was her usual serene self, but Jon appeared tired.

"Anything wrong, Cap'n?" Trip asked. "You look a little peaked."

The steward entered with a thermos of coffee and a pitcher of orange juice. Jon indicated his coffee cup, and the steward poured some of the steaming beverage for him before moving to fill Trip's cup. T'Pol declined both beverages with a polite shake of her head.

As the steward placed both containers on the table and left, Jon took a cautious sip of his hot coffee and looked over at Trip. "Porthos had a nightmare last night and woke me up. I didn't sleep well after that."

"Porthos has bad dreams?" Trip asked.

Jon shrugged. "So it would seem. He was growling at something, but of course nothing was there. He wound up on my bed for the rest of the night, but I don't think he ever went back to sleep."

"How is he now?" Trip asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

"See for yourself," Jon said.

Trip followed Jon's gaze to see Porthos curled up sound asleep next to Jon's feet under the table. Trip could hear faint snoring coming from the dog. "Poor little guy," Trip said sympathetically.

T'Pol rolled her eyes. She'd been aware of the dog all along, Trip knew, because of her heightened sense of smell. No wonder she'd turned down both the coffee and orange juice. Smell could often affect a person's stomach -- a more delicate person, Trip thought wryly as the steward returned with two covered platters. He could smell bacon the moment the steward had walked in.

As T'Pol wrinkled her nose, Jon removed the lids from the serving trays. Along with the bacon was a mound of scrambled eggs. The captain looked to T'Pol, who said, "Please, start without me."

Jon began scooping some eggs onto his plate. In the meantime, T'Pol pushed a data PADD across the table to Trip.

"What's that?" the engineer asked as he transferred several slices of bacon to his plate.

"A request to have diagnostics run on the environmental systems connected to crew quarters on B deck," she answered. She paused as the steward returned one more time and set a plate of sliced fruit in front of her. When the man had left, she explained, "A minor malfunction interrupted my meditation last night."

"What kind of malfunction?" Trip asked as Jon passed him the platter of eggs.

"As you know, normal ship temperature is...somewhat uncomfortable...for me. I keep the temperature and ventilation in my cabin at different settings than the rest of the ship."

"That's why you don't get much company," Trip said with a grin. "It's like a desert in there."

T'Pol fixed him with her gaze, and he expected a scathing retort. When she'd first been assigned to _Enterprise_, most of their disagreements had turned into acrimonious exchanges. His sarcastic remarks to her had been driven by mistrust and resentment, and he had come to realize that her condescending comments were the result of a sense of isolationism on a ship run by humans. After having been through so much together, however, their disagreements now were often playful, a give and take between colleagues who respected and trusted each other. He liked to think that they sometimes deliberately baited each other simply because they both enjoyed the verbal sparring. He seriously doubted they'd ever be a couple the way he would have hoped at one time, but he liked to think that they'd become friends.

"It was not like a desert last night," she said. "The temperature dropped considerably, although only for a brief period. I also detected an air current after I had closed the main ventilation to my cabin. It, too, was of brief duration."

A thoughtful look came over Trip's face and he stopped chewing. He swallowed with the help of another sip of his coffee. "You know, that sounds like what happened to me yesterday on the _Wayfarer's Rest _after you left."

T'Pol paused, her knife and fork hovering over the piece of honeydew melon that she was slicing into bite-sized portions. "I fail to see how there could be any detectable system malfunctions on a ship that has no power."

"Not malfunctions specifically. The coldness and the air current. I could swear I felt a cold breeze. Like you said, there's no power on the ship. There was no explanation for it. Except..."

As Trip's voice trailed off, Jon asked, "Except for what?"

Trip cleared his throat. "Well, I don't mean to sound like our resident ghost storyteller, Travis, but I could have sworn there was somebody there when it happened. But there wasn't anybody there but me."

T'Pol said, "Most likely it was your imagination 'getting the better of you.' It is a common human foible."

Jon's eyes twinkled with amusement. "What's the matter, T'Pol? Don't you believe in ghosts?"

The combined gazes of Jon and Trip on her, T'Pol calmly sliced another portion on her fruit plate. "I have no empirical evidence to support the existence of ghosts. There are no ghosts on Vulcan. From what I understand, research into the topic on your planet is not conclusive. Much of it is based on feelings or emotions evoked in situations conducive to fear and superstition."

"So what you're saying is," Jon said, "the existence of ghosts has neither been proved nor disproved."

Trip snorted and picked up a piece of bacon. "She's saying she has to see it with her own two eyes to believe it."

* * *

Phlox perked up considerably when Travis joined the group at his table. He'd already expounded on his experience in the morgue for Malcolm and Hoshi, but neither had seemed impressed. _Enterprise's _helmsman, on the other hand, was gaining a reputation as an expert storyteller of unexplained mysteries. He'd be a more receptive audience. 

Once the usual human pleasantries of greetings and asking if each other had slept well were observed, Phlox broached his topic once more. "Travis, you'll appreciate something that happened to me last night."

"Um?" Travis mumbled around the bite of toast he'd just taken.

While his response was not exactly articulate, Travis did seem interested, Phlox thought happily. He launched into a recitation of his unease while working in sickbay, his subsequent visit to the morgue, and ended with his belief, fleeting though it was, that he had seen the corpse move under the shroud and his reaction to it. "I experienced a very unusual sensation," Phlox concluded. "I believe you have a phrase for it -- 'someone walked over my grave.'"

"It would make a great ghost story," Travis said, "if there was more to it."

Malcolm and Hoshi chuckled even as Phlox's satisifed smile faltered. "I don't understand," the doctor said.

"It has all the elements of a good ghost story," Travis explained. "One person alone at night, a feeling that something's not right, a dead body... Don't get me wrong, Doctor, but there's just not enough to it, other than your creepy feeling." When Phlox frowned, Travis added, "For example, if you had heard an eerie noise and all the lights went out, or if, for some reason, you couldn't get back out of the morgue compartment -- now _that _would have been a good ghost story."

"Travis," Hoshi said with a laugh as a speculative gleam came into the helmsman's eyes, "I know that look. Next thing we know, you're going to tell us that poor Robert Watson is haunting _Enterprise_."

Phlox, who'd been disappointed by Travis' response to his experience, perked up again. "I don't believe I've ever had the chance to study -- what is it called? -- paranormal phenomena. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to study that firsthand?"

Malcolm groaned. "See what you've started, Travis? I hope all this talk of ghosts isn't going to interfere with your work on the _Wayfarer's Rest_."

"Speaking of work," Hoshi said, "I have some things to do on the bridge. Not all of us are excused from our duties."

"What do you have to do?" Travis asked curiously.

"I'm still trying to track down any living relatives of Robert Watson," she replied. "I've sent inquiries to Earth, and I'm waiting for responses. In the meantime, I want to review the personnel roster files on the new crewmen. I haven't put all the names with the new faces yet. And if I get really bored, I may try to see if there is any historical information on the _Wayfarer's Rest _that T'Pol didn't find."

"You said you weren't interested in that ship unless we needed help with communications," Malcolm said.

"You're not the only one who's bored," Hoshi replied dryly. She pushed back from the table and got to her feet. "It's not like there's much else to do. We've been mapping this sector of space for two weeks now, and there's no communications involved since we haven't run into a single other ship. Well, except for the one in our launch bay." She flashed a bright smile at the others at the table "If I find anything about the _Wayfarer's Rest_, I'll let you know. All of you must be very, very bored."

Phlox realized that Hoshi was absolutely correct in her assessment of their interest in the derelict ship. They were indeed bored. But what better to take your mind off the tedium of the current mission than a little mystery rooted in the past? Add the possibility of ghostly hauntings, and he wouldn't have to prescribe extra recreation as therapy for a bored crew for a few days at least.

* * *

Contrary to what Hoshi had told those who had been at her table for breakfast, there wasn't much on the bridge to occupy her. She'd sent the inquiries about Robert Watson to Earth yesterday, but she couldn't do anything else in that regard until replies came in. Considering they were dealing with a death that had happened more than fifty years ago, it might be some time before information could be found, and it might be days or even weeks before they got any answers. 

Captain Archer might want her to compose messages to any descendants. But even if he did it himself -- and he just might if he was as bored as the rest of the crew, despite notifying next of kin being an unpleasant task -- she'd still be the one to send them off. That would take a grand total of about five minutes, she thought wryly.

Hoshi ran a routine maintenance check on her communications console. Everything was working properly. She gazed around the bridge and saw most of the crew doing exactly what she'd been doing. They were performing routine maintenance or running diagnostics or anything else that would give the illusion that they were busy. The only things out of the ordinary were that Ensign Tanner was filling in for Travis at the helm, and one of Malcolm's security staff was manning the tactical console. By the time the first hour had passed, she could tell that the novelty of being on the bridge during alpha shift had worn off for the newcomers.

The new faces on the bridge reminded her of the man she'd seen last night on her way to the mess hall. Before she could call up the personnel roster, however, T'Pol entered the bridge from the turbolift and headed straight for her.

"Ensign," T'Pol said, handing several data disks to her. "Please enter this information concerning the _Wayfarer's Rest _in the ship's database."

Hoshi didn't mind doing as T'Pol had requested, but the Vulcan usually took care of such tasks herself. Her confusion must have shown as she took the disks, for T'Pol said, "The captain requires some..." T'Pol paused, as if seeking the right word. Not meeting Hoshi's eyes, she finally said, "...distraction."

Hoshi managed to keep a straight face. Coming from anyone else, T'Pol's comment would have sounded like the captain was in the mood for a little hanky-panky. But having had her own experience with some other crew members' obsession with the little craft tucked away in the launch bay, she knew better. The captain was just as bored as Trip, Malcolm and Travis.

"I'd love to update the ship's database. It will provide a distraction for me," Hoshi said.

T'Pol raised an eyebrow. "Indeed. If you are in need of more distraction later, you may take my place viewing a water polo match with the captain."

"I don't think I'll ever be that bored," Hoshi said truthfully.

T'Pol nodded, and with a deep breath, moved off towards the captain's ready room. Hoshi waited to smile until T'Pol was off the bridge. Glancing at the identification tags on the data disks, she saw that most of them were logs from the _Wayfarer's Rest_. There was another with T'Pol's report, and one with Trip's. It wouldn't take long to process them. She might as well look at some of the logs while she was at it. It wasn't like they were classified.

She sorted through the disks and picked the last set of logs. From the date on it, it was made after the accident that had marooned him. She placed it in the reader slot on her console, making sure she put her earpiece in so as not to disturb the others on the bridge, and turned away to load T'Pol's report in another access port off to one side. As she input commands to catalog the report, she heard the log begin. The voice was male, deep and resonant, but tense.

"I've made a serious error in judgment," came the voice through the speaker in her ear. "Now I'm going to have to live -- and most likely die -- with that error."

T'Pol's report had begun downloading, and Hoshi swung back around to the small viewscreen on her console. What she there saw made her jaw drop. She no longer heard what Robert Watson was saying as she watched the close-up of him on the screen. It obviously had been made from the cockpit of his ship, for he was seated in a pilot's chair and she could make out a hatch on the bulkhead directly behind him. But what had her full attention was the man himself. She reached out and paused the recording.

She was looking at the man she'd seen in the corridor last night.


	5. Chapter 5

A.N.: Once agan, thanks to everyone who left a review. You know who you are!

CHAPTER FIVE

The damaged hull panels, including those that were bent and impeded the flow of the plasma exhaust, had been removed from the _Wayfarer's Rest_. Trip had assigned some of his engineering staff to fabricate new panels. While he was waiting for the panels to be made, he decided to take a closer look at the engine. He was squatting next to the engine, Malcolm beside him, as they opened an access panel covering some of the inner workings. The panel gave way and almost sent both men tumbling backwards. When they'd regained their balance, Trip relinquished the panel to Malcolm, who set it aside.

The portable work lights they'd set up helped to alleviate the gloom in the engine compartment, but portions of the interior were either highlighted in washed-out brilliance or in deep shadow. Both men had to rely on flashlights to see inside the engine.

"I don't understand why you aren't using _Enterprise's _power to run some of the secondary systems," Malcolm complained. "At least that way we'd be able to see decently."

"I will, Malcolm, I will," Trip said, his attention focused on the engine components. "I just wanted to see this first."

Malcolm chuffed and leaned closer to the opening to look inside at the mass of wires, relays and switches. "Rather cluttered, isn't it?"

"Not for its day," Trip answered. "If I remember right, this model made a fortune for its designer. ... Nothing appears to be wrong with it. We'll get some equipment in here, run a few diagnostics, and see what we come up with."

"We aren't going to be able to charge the batteries unless we engage the engine," Malcolm said. "Instead of waiting until the engine is operational, why don't we feed some of _Enterprise's _power into the batteries?"

Trip tore his gaze from the engine to look at Malcolm with a tolerant smile. "What's the rush, Malcolm? It's not like we've got anything else to do. We might as well take our time and enjoy it. Besides, I'm planning to hook up some of the secondary systems to our power supply after I look at this."

Malcolm was nodding in response to this last remark when a shout from out in the launch bay heralded the return of Travis. The helmsman had volunteered to go to Engineering to get some components. The two men went to the hatch and stepped out to find not only Travis, who was loaded down with parts and pieces, but Hoshi as well.

"I thought you were going to spend your shift on the bridge," Trip said by way of greeting to Hoshi as he relieved Travis of some of the items.

"I was," Hoshi said, "but I want to talk to Malcolm about something."

Trip and Travis moved off around the other side of the ship, leaving Malcolm alone with Hoshi. When she didn't speak, just stared at the_ Wayfarer's Rest_, he asked, "Is something wrong?"

"It's probably nothing," Hoshi prevaricated. "I'm probably just being silly, but..."

Malcolm waited patiently as Hoshi shuffled her feet. She had made the effort to come all the way to the launch bay from the bridge, and that meant whatever was bothering her wasn't trivial. And that she wanted to speak to him indicated it might be something concerning the security of the ship. When she met his eyes, Malcolm could see the uncertainty in them. Something definitely was worrying her, but she wasn't sure it was something she should bother him about. "Hoshi?" he asked.

She took a deep breath and said in a rush, "Late last night I saw someone I didn't recognize in a corridor on C deck. At the time, I assumed he was one of the new crew members. I checked the pictures in the personnel roster a while ago, but he's not one of them."

A prickle of alarm made Malcolm tense. "Did you talk to this person?"

"No, he was walking away from me at the far end of the corridor, and I was only going as far as the turbolift," Hoshi explained. "But for a moment, when he looked over his shoulder at me, I saw his face."

"You're sure he wasn't a crew member?" Malcolm pressed.

"I'm sure," Hoshi said. She bit her lip.

"I suppose it's possible that we might have an intruder or a stowaway," Malcolm remarked, his thoughts turning to the logistics of what it would take to track down a person who had snuck on the ship. While it was highly unlikely that an unauthorized person had come aboard, it wasn't impossible. He'd run an interior biosign scan, and if that failed to turn up anyone who shouldn't be on board, he'd have to institute a deck-by-deck search. "You did the right thing telling me about this, Hoshi."

"I'm not sure he's an intruder," Hoshi said. She added almost flippantly, "Now that I think about it, I guess he could be considered a stowaway, in a manner of speaking. But the point is -- I think I know who it is -- or rather, was."

Her last few words were drowned out by a shout from Trip. "Hey, Malcolm!" came the engineer's voice from the other side of the _Wayfarer's Rest_. "We could use your help here."

"Just a minute!" Malcolm called back. Turning back to Hoshi, he said, "You know who he is, but you said he wasn't one of the crew."

"He's not a member of this crew. I'm sure of that," she said. She shifted her gaze to look at the small ship. "The man I saw last night was Robert Watson."

Malcolm laughed. Had Travis put her up to this? Now that things had finally calmed down and there were no immediate crises to deal with, he had no trouble believing that the pair of ensigns had decided to try a practical joke on someone. Well, it wasn't going to work on him. He shook his head and smiled. "It couldn't have been, Hoshi. He's been dead for about sixty years."

"I know what I saw," Hoshi said stubbornly. "This morning, T'Pol gave me the logs from his ship to enter into our records. I saw Robert Watson on the screen, and he looked exactly like the man I saw last night."

Malcolm stared at her. She certainly sounded like she believed what she was saying. "Are you sure you didn't dream the whole thing?" Malcolm asked in an effort to be reasonable. "You saw Watson's likeness in the logs and maybe--"

Hoshi cut him off. "Last night, when I saw that man, I had no idea what Robert Watson looked like. I didn't know what he looked like until this morning -- _after _I'd seen him in the corridor." She crossed her arms over her chest. "And I may have been sleepy, but I wasn't asleep when I saw him. I wasn't dreaming."

As Malcolm pondered exactly what the proper response should be to Hoshi's obviously out-of-control imagination -- a response that would reassure her yet not anger her because he didn't really believe she'd seen a ghost -- another shout came from the other side of the ship. "Malcolm?"

Pitching his voice to carry to Trip, he answered, "Something's come up."

Trip's head popped up over the top of the _Wayfarer's Rest_. The engineer apparently was up on the ladder taking a look at the damaged hull again. "I thought you didn't have anything to do," Trip said.

Malcolm frowned. He really didn't think anything would come of checking out Hoshi's story of an unknown person on board, and nothing could possibly come from her assertion that she'd seen what had amounted to a ghost. She must have seen one of the crew and been mistaken. The low lighting of gamma shift could play tricks on a person, and she had admitted to not being fully awake at the time.

Then he remembered that she'd seen and heard things none of the rest of the crew had. The incident with Tarquin when they'd been in the Expanse came to mind. The telepathic alien's contact with her had been so strong that she had been able to talk to him when he'd been light years away. He also remembered that when she'd first told him about hearing Tarquin's voice, he hadn't believed her then, either. If there was the slightest chance that something beyond the range of his detection -- but not Hoshi's -- was on board, it was his duty to check into it.

"I have to go," he told Trip, who waved in acknowledgment and dropped back down out of sight behind the hull of the _Wayfarer's Rest_.

Hoshi flashed him a grateful smile. No doubt she hadn't wanted to bring this to the captain's attention, at least until she had some type of evidence to back up her wild claim. Chances were she had imagined the whole thing, but the least he could do was check into it -- just to make sure it wasn't an intruder of some sort.

"Let's get up to the bridge," Malcolm told her. "The first thing we need to do is run an interior scan to make sure there isn't an extra person on board. If that doesn't turn up anything, then we'll figure out what to do next."

* * *

Trip slid down the ladder and landed on the deck with a thump. Travis grinned as Trip affectionately slapped his palm against the side of the _Wayfarer's Rest._

"All right, Travis," said Trip. "Let's see if some of those components you rounded up will let us adapt our power supply for this little beauty."

The two men made their way back into the engine compartment. Travis' gaze roamed over the fittings. "A lot of this looks familiar," he remarked.

Trip chuckled as he checked the connection for one of the power lines. "I expect some of this equipment is still in use on Boomer ships."

"You've got that right, but it's all so small!" Travis said as he spun in a slow circle to look at everything. "The engine on the _Horizon _is eight to ten times the size of this one."

"Your family has more and bigger cargo to carry, seeing as how it's a freighter," Trip said. "This ship just had poor old Robert Watson."

"Yeah," Travis said and fell silent.

Trip made some adjustments to the adapter, then handed it to Travis. "Let's see if this will work now."

Travis stepped over to one of the power cables strung through the hatch, put the adapter on the end, and held it up for Trip to see. "It fits like a glove," Travis said.

"Good. Now--"

The portable lights went out, leaving the two men in darkness except for what light that shone in through the hatch from the launch bay.

"I didn't do that," Travis said immediately.

"I know, Travis," Trip said. "There's no power in that cable yet. I haven't plugged any of the cables in to the EPS junction except for the one to the portable lights. Maybe somebody disconnected it. I'll be right back."

Travis waited in the dark compartment, twirling the end of the power cable he was holding, after Trip left to check the connection in the launch bay proper. There wasn't much he could do in the dark, and his thoughts turned to the last person to operate this ship. When the lights came back on, he blinked in the sudden brightness. Trip reentered the compartment a few moments later.

"What'd you do?" the engineer asked curiously.

"What do you mean -- what did I do?" Travis countered.

"The connection outside was good," Trip explained. He gestured toward one of the portable lights. "How'd you get the lights to come back on?"

"I didn't do anything," Travis said.

"Must be a short in that line," Trip said, and stepped farther into the compartment.

"Could be," Travis said, "or it could be the ghost of Robert Watson. Maybe he doesn't like us messing with his ship."

"Travis," Trip chided him. "I like a good ghost story as much as the next person. Probably more, come to think of it." He took another adapter out of its packaging. "But it's a short in the line. Call over to Engineering, would you? Have somebody bring us another power cable."

The lights flickered. Both men looked at the lights, then at each other.

As the lights steadied, Trip said, "And have 'em take a look at the cable that's acting up."

Travis nodded, but his gaze was darting about the area. "It's probably a short," he said.

Trip glanced around the compartment, an unaccustomed chill running up his spine for no reason. "I hope so. I know how to deal with shorts." Giving Travis a lopsided grin, he added, "Ghosts...I'm not so sure."

* * *

Hoshi was seated at the communications station, Malcolm standing hunched over next to her with one hand resting on the desktop of the console, when Jon came out of his ready room onto the bridge. Spying the two officers engrossed in something on the communications console, he made his way over to them.

"Hoshi, Malcolm," he said. He suppressed a smile as Malcolm abruptly straightened. He knew he hadn't startled Malcolm; rather, it was the officer's strict adherence to protocol that had made him assume a more military posture. "What's going on?"

"Hoshi wanted me to check something for her," Malcolm said.

"Oh?"

"It's nothing, sir," Hoshi said. "Nothing important, that is."

Jon looked from Hoshi, who appeared embarrassed, to Malcolm, who seemed to be hiding a smile. Whatever they were up to, they didn't want him to know about it.

Malcolm caught Jon's gaze over the top of Hoshi's head and said, "If it does turn out to be something important, of course I'll inform you immediately, sir."

Jon quirked an eyebrow at that. He waited a moment, hoping one of them would volunteer more information, but neither of his officers spoke. With a nod, he said, "Carry on."

As Jon walked away, he thought that perhaps his officers had too much time on their hands. After taking the derelict ship into the launch bay, _Enterprise _had resumed it charting mission, but they wouldn't be finished with it soon enough to suit him. The crew's restlessness was beginning to make some of them act in rather peculiar ways.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

Malcolm had completed the interior scans and had found exactly what he had expected -- nothing. The crew complement registered the correct number of humans, in addition to one Denobulan and one Vulcan. Also accounted for were one small dog and the various creatures in Doctor Phlox's small menagerie in sickbay. There were no lifesigns that couldn't be explained.

The result was the same as that of the low-key search Malcolm had ordered his security staff to perform. His men were as bored as the rest of the crew, and they had been eager to have something to do besides polish phase pistols and run torpedo drills. If his security personnel believed the search was just another drill to keep their skills honed, Malcolm wasn't about to disabuse them of that notion. He'd gotten the impression from Hoshi that, until there was some sort of proof, she didn't want anyone else to know about her experience. He wasn't sure he wanted anyone to know he was helping her with it, either. Out of consideration for her feelings, not to mention his reputation, he wasn't going to make her alleged ghost sighting common knowledge.

Malcolm looked around the bridge. T'Pol was at her station, engrossed in the readings they were compiling to chart this sector of space. The logical Vulcan was the last person Malcolm wanted to involve in a search for what she no doubt would believe was a figment of Hoshi's imagination.

He realized that it must have been hard for Hoshi to approach him about her suspicion, considering his skepticism. At the same time, he felt a certain amount of satisfaction that Hoshi had faith in him to help her find out exactly what it was that she had seen.

Hoshi had left the bridge a short time ago for a lunch break. Malcolm, knowing she was anxious to learn the results of the scans, had elected to stay on the bridge and finish up. Somehow, he didn't think his findings -- or rather, the lack of them -- would surprise her. She seemed certain that she'd seen something otherworldly. Otherworldly was looking more and more possible, he thought as he got to his feet and gestured for a replacement to take over at tactical. That wasn't to say it had to be the ghost of a long-dead spacefarer. There could be a perfectly feasible explanation that didn't have anything to do with spectral apparitions. They'd met a number of aliens with unusual abilities. His instincts, however, were telling him that was not the case.

Malcolm sighed as he stepped into the turbolift. It wasn't that he didn't believe Hoshi had seen something. He was sure she had. But whether it was real or imagined was another matter. If only for her peace of mind, he needed to check all the possibilities he could think of. But if he exhausted those possibilities, how was he supposed to go about tracking down a ghost?

Remembering something Travis had said at breakfast, he decided to return to the launch bay. He found Trip rummaging through a toolbox on a work table next to the _Wayfarer's Rest _when he walked in. He didn't see Travis.

"What happened to your helper?" Malcolm asked.

"I sent Travis off to lunch," Trip replied. "Until I find my microcaliper, I can't take any measurements on the engine. I could have sworn I put it in my toolbox after I got done usin' it."

"Don't you have another you can use?" Malcolm asked.

"I could get one from Engineering," Trip admitted as he continued to dig through the tools in the box, "but it's my favorite. I know it's here somewhere."

Malcolm stated the obvious line of inquiry. "When was the last time you used it?"

"That's just it," Trip said. "I used it about an hour ago, and I put it back in the toolbox." The engineer stood thinking for moment, then shook his head. "But maybe I'm mistaken." He walked over to the _Wayfarer's Rest _and stepped through the hatchway.

Malcolm followed and joined in the hunt for the missing microcaliper. Between the two of them, and the fact that power from _Enterprise _was now being fed to the little ship, the small engine compartment was brightly lit by its own interior lights and was thoroughly searched within minutes. The microcaliper wasn't found.

"Are you sure you didn't use it somewhere else?" Malcolm asked.

Trip, standing in the center of the engine compartment with his hands on his hips, shook his head. "I'm sure. And before you ask, Travis didn't use it. I'm sure of that."

Malcolm headed for the next compartment.

"I know I didn't use it in there," Trip called after him.

Malcolm stepped through the hatchway and stopped in the living quarters. The small living area was as neat as a pin. Trip and Travis had no reason to work in the personal quarters, and it was more likely that the microcaliper had been left in the forward compartment if they'd been in there. After a cursory glance at the bunk and the counter surfaces, he made for the next compartment.

The cockpit was as he remembered it. Small to the point of inducing claustrophobia, it nevertheless seemed bigger now that there weren't two other people in EV suits crowding in and a dead body in the pilot's chair. Malcolm let his gaze roam from one end of the main instrument panel to the other. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary. He was turning away to leave when his eye was caught by light reflecting off a piece of shiny metal on the deck under the instrument panel. He leaned down for a better look. In the space for the pilot's feet and legs was the missing microcaliper. Maybe Travis or Trip had dropped it unnoticed while they were in here. It certainly wasn't a place they'd put down the tool on purpose.

Malcolm bent down and picked up the device. As he straightened, he felt a chill on the back of his neck. Similar to what he privately referred to as his personal radar, the sensation triggered a rush of adrenaline in his body as he reacted to the feeling that someone had snuck up behind him. He whirled around to face the hatchway.

No one was there.

He grimaced. Hoshi's story of seeing what she thought was the ghost of Robert Watson must be getting to him. That was the effect ghost stories had on a person. A little seed of uncertainty was planted in your mind, and the next thing you knew, you were jumping at shadows.

He made his way back to the engine compartment. "Found it," he said as he held out the tool.

Trip's face lit up as he took the microcaliper from Malcolm. "Where was it?"

"Under the instrument panel in the cockpit."

Trip stared at Malcolm. "It couldn't have been. We didn't take any tools in there."

"Are you sure?" Malcolm asked.

"Positive," Trip said empathically. "We only went in there one time and that was to see if the relays were switched on so we could get some light in here after we connected the power lines."

"Maybe Travis had it."

Trip shook his head. "Uh-uh. We'd just got done hooking up the power in the launch bay. All the tools were in my toolbox out there. We both came in, and I swear neither one of us had anything with us."

Malcolm pursed his lips. "It couldn't very well have walked in there on its own. One of you must have had it and dropped it in the cockpit."

Trip's eyes grew wide. "Or maybe we have a poltergeist." At Malcolm's blank stare, he added, "You know, a ghost that likes to move things and make noise."

"Come on, Trip. You don't believe in that stuff, do you?"

"Have you got a better explanation?" Trip asked.

Malcolm didn't. In fact, recalling the reason he'd come to the launch bay to see Trip, he suddenly felt a little foolish. He reluctantly shook his head and said, "Actually, I was wondering if you could help me with something."

"Go ahead." Trip motioned with the microcaliper toward the engine. "I can listen while I work." He turned toward the engine and started taking measurements.

Malcolm cast a glance around the compartment. He didn't know what he expected to see, but he couldn't deny that he was feeling increasingly edgy. He knew he would be opening himself up to teasing from Trip as soon as he broached the subject. Maybe that explained his reluctance to bring it up. He cleared his throat. "I need to set up some equipment to pick up EM readings on the ship."

Trip, his attention focused on what he was doing with the engine, asked absently, "What for?"

"According to the research I've done, and from what little I remember from some of Travis' ramblings on the subject..."

Trip input some numbers on a data PADD and repositioned the microcaliper to take another measurement. "Go on."

Malcolm blew out his breath. "Hoshi thinks she's seen a ghost."

Trip swung around to face Malcolm, the measurements forgotten. "You're not pullin' my leg, are you?" When Malcolm shook his head, Trip said, "Wow! What happened? Where'd she see it?"

Malcolm blinked, startled by Trip's ready acceptance that one of their coworkers had seen a ghost.

Trip said, "I could tell something was bothering Hoshi when she asked to talk to you this morning. And since it was you she wanted to talk to, I figured it might have been a security concern. You've had enough time to check out anything that might be a threat to _Enterprise_, so that leaves..." Trip gazed around the engine room of the _Wayfarer's Rest_. "Why do you need to take electromagnetic readings?"

"From what little I can find on the topic of ghosts and hauntings, sudden spikes in the strength of EM fields are associated with--"

A long clang resounded from the front of the ship. The two men stared at each other as the reverberation of metal on metal died away.

"That came from inside this ship," Trip said quietly. "And there's nobody in here but you and me."

"Exactly what I was thinking," Malcolm said, and took off at a run for the cockpit. Trip was right behind him.

Malcolm was through the living quarters and into the cockpit in only a few seconds. He looked around, trying to discover the source of the noise they'd heard, as Trip clambered into the cockpit next to him.

They both saw it at the same time. A number of small cabinets were built in to the bulkheads. The door of one of the cabinets was wide open. Malcolm heard Trip swallow.

"That wasn't like that the last time I was in here," Trip said softly. "Did you open it?"

"No," Malcolm said tersely. He stepped closer to the cabinet and inspected the latch. "This couldn't have opened on its own."

"Even if it did, it would have taken a lot of force to make that much noise. It sounded like somebody slammed it back against the bulkhead," Trip said. "What's inside?"

Malcolm looked inside and frowned. He reached in and grabbed the only item in the cabinet. Turning to face Trip, he held up a bulky metal box by a handle riveted to its top.

Trip looked at the old toolbox, then at Malcolm. With an uncertain smile, the engineer said, "Looks like somebody wanted us to know where the tools are." He took the toolbox, turning it around in his hands to study it. "Wanna guess whose this is?"

Trip turned the toolbox, holding it by the sides so that Malcolm could see the handle. The letters "RW" were stamped on the grip.


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

Hoshi wasn't listening. She was wrapped up in her own thoughts, wondering what Malcolm had found with the scans, as Travis chattered away during lunch. Then the helmsman started talking about the lights going out when he and Trip had been working on the _Wayfarer's Rest _that morning.

"There was no reason for the lights to do that. The power connection to the portable lights was good." Travis lowered his voice and leaned toward her across the table. "I think it was the ghost of Robert Watson."

Hoshi stared at him. She hadn't told him about her encounter with the ghost of Robert Watson because she knew what his response would be. He'd be so excited that he'd tell everyone he met. Half the ship would know about it by dinner, and the rest by breakfast tomorrow. She didn't want the crew to think she was crazy, or hear the inevitable jokes about having been in space for too long. Malcolm had been skeptical, of course, but that was different. She expected him to doubt her claim. That was why she'd told him about it in the first place. Just in case it wasn't a ghost but an intruder of some sort, Malcolm needed to know. Yet she couldn't bring herself to tell the captain. Jon would smile in that patronizing manner he had sometimes and send her off to sickbay to be checked by Phlox.

She hoped Malcolm came up with some answers soon. She wished that he would find something concrete to prove her wrong, even though she was certain she'd seen a ghost. She wasn't sure she wanted to work and live on a ship that was haunted. That would be worse than her crewmates questioning her sanity.

She glanced across the table at Travis. He probably wouldn't make fun of her experience, especially after the incident with the lights going off and on while he'd been working with Trip. At the very least, he'd be sympathetic. She weighed her need to tell someone besides Malcolm about what had happened. Maybe she could swear Travis to secrecy.

Before she could decide whether to tell him, Trip and Malcolm walked in. The tactical officer saw her and gave her a slight nod, then followed Trip to the serving line. Travis, his monologue of his morning's activities still going strong as Trip and Malcolm joined them at the table a few minutes later, was telling her about the missing microcaliper.

"Malcolm found it," Trip said as he sat down. "It was under the instrument panel in the cockpit."

Travis laughed. "Finally! Now we can get back to work on that ship. You must have left it in there, Commander."

Trip picked up his sandwich. "I've already been through this with Malcolm, so I'm only gonna say it once. I did not take the microcaliper into the cockpit." His expression stubborn, he paused with his sandwich halfway to his mouth. "Something else did." He took a big bite of his sandwich.

Hoshi, who'd been wondering how she was going to get a word alone with Malcolm to hear the results of the scans, sat up straighter. Trip had said "something," not "someone."

"Like a ghost?" Travis asked.

Trip was chewing and couldn't answer. Malcolm, with an apologetic glance at Hoshi, said, "I told Trip, because I need his help tracking this thing down. And Travis is our resident ghost expert. We have to tell him." He turned toward the helmsman. "Last night, Hoshi saw a...person...who matches the description of Robert Watson."

"Really?" Travis exclaimed excitedly.

Malcolm shushed him as Hoshi looked anxiously at nearby diners whose attention had been drawn by Travis' outburst.

"This is not for public knowledge until we do some investigation," Malcolm warned him. He looked at Hoshi. "I didn't find anything out of the ordinary when I ran the scans for life signs, but that doesn't mean it was a ghost. There could be something else responsible."

Hoshi frowned and said, "But you're starting to think it might be possible, aren't you?"

She knew she was right when Malcolm steadily held her gaze.

"Something else happened after Malcolm found the microcaliper," Trip said. He told them about the commotion they'd heard in the cockpit and how they'd found the old toolbox with the initials of Robert Watson.

Travis was practically squirming with excitement in his seat. "This has all the classic signs of a haunting," he said. "Objects being moved, loud noises, and didn't you say you felt a cold spot?"

The question was addressed to Trip, who nodded.

With obvious reluctance, Malcolm said, "Something similar happened to me after I found the microcaliper."

"What?" Travis asked breathlessly.

"I'd just picked up the microcaliper from the deck," Malcolm said, "when I felt a cold sensation on the back of my neck. I thought someone had come up behind me, even though I didn't hear anything."

"And there was no one there!" Travis said.

Malcolm shook his head. "Not a soul."

Hoshi winced at his choice of words. She'd expected Malcolm to be the most resistant to the notion that there was a ghost on board _Enterprise_. But if he, of all people, thought it was possible that the ghost of Robert Watson was walking the corridors of the ship--

"What about you, Hoshi?" Travis asked. "What did you see?"

Hoshi related her encounter on C deck the previous night, and that she hadn't identified the person as Robert Watson until she was looking at the logs from the _Wayfarer's Rest _this morning. When she finished, she said, "But why was he away from his ship when I saw him? All the other things that you think he's responsible for have happened on or around the _Wayfarer's Rest_."

"Not all," Travis said with a shake of his head. "Remember this morning when Doctor Phlox was saying that he'd been scared in the morgue? He thought he'd seen the body move."

"Yeah," Trip said, "and the captain told me that Porthos was growling in the middle of the night at something he couldn't see."

All four officers fell silent. Hoshi pushed the food around on her plate with her fork. She knew what she had seen, but she was still having a hard time believing that other people could so easily believe it as well. She should have felt vindicated. Instead, she was vaguely disturbed. She supposed it was possible that they were all so bored with their current mission that they were going stir-crazy and imagining these things. She glanced at the others from under her eyelashes. Maybe it was some form of mass hysteria and they were all having hallucinations. Oh, great! she thought. Now she was not only questioning her own sanity, but that of some of the most stable people she knew.

That didn't change her conviction that she'd seen a person who could only have been Robert Watson. Since the man was dead, his body in the morgue, it had to have been his ghost. There was no other explanation, rational or otherwise, that she could think of. With a start, she realized she'd been the only one to actually see the ghost.

As if he'd picked up on what she'd been thinking, Trip said, "It could be that, with the decreased activity during the night shift, the ghost started wandering around. Maybe he was trying to find out where he's at. Hoshi just happened to be in the right place at the right time."

Hoshi cocked an eyebrow at him. "Or the wrong time."

"Hoshi, I don't think there's anything to worry about," Trip said reassuringly. "He hasn't done anything except make some noise, run off with one of my tools, and play with the lights. It's not like he's done any real harm or is a threat." Trip's brow furrowed. He looked worriedly across the table at Malcolm. "He's not a threat, is he?"

Malcolm shrugged. "I have no idea. But there's the incident with the portable lights. What if it was some other system, like environmental controls for the whole ship?"

Hoshi hadn't thought of that. She stared at Malcolm as they all fell quiet again, each considering all the things that could go fatally wrong on a starship. It was just like Malcolm to think the worst, but he was right to be concerned. An unknown entity -- and a ghost certainly qualified as some type of entity -- could cause serious problems aboard the ship.

But the ghost wasn't really unknown, she reasoned. They knew who he'd been in life, and they knew how he'd died. They also knew the circumstances surrounding his death. He'd been on his way home when tragedy had befallen him. It must have been terrible to be alone on his little ship, not knowing whether his wife and child were still sick and realizing that even if they recovered, he was going to die and would never see them again.

"What?" Malcolm asked her.

Hoshi blinked, brought back from her musings by his question. "I was just thinking how sad Robert Watson's death was. He never found out what happened to his family. And they probably never found out what happened to him."

Travis put down his fork. "That may be why he's haunting us. There are cases where a spirit can't leave this plane of existence because there are unresolved issues."

"Death seems like it would resolve an issue one way or the other," Trip remarked and took another bite of his sandwich.

"No," Travis said. "You're missing the point. Robert Watson was upset, worried about his wife and child, when he died. He didn't know if they were okay. There also probably was some guilt involved, since he was away from their home on Vega when they got sick and he wasn't going to be able to make it back after his ship was damaged."

"Dabbling in amateur psychology, Travis?" Malcolm asked.

Other than to frown, Travis ignored the comment. "The point is: Robert Watson didn't have a peaceful death. It wasn't violent, but it wasn't peaceful, either. There were too many strong emotions -- worry, guilt, frustration -- all tied in to him trying to get to home."

Trip looked thoughtful. "If the emotional state at the time of death is responsible for the existence of ghosts, that explains something T'Pol said this morning." At the inquisitive looks from the others, he said, "She said there are no ghosts on Vulcan." His eyes widened. "That reminds me. T'Pol said she was having trouble with her cabin's environmental controls last night. I had one of my staff check it out today, but there wasn't anything wrong."

Hoshi cleared her throat. "It seems like we've all accepted that there may be a ghost on _Enterprise_," she said. Trip and Travis immediately nodded. After a moment's hesitation, Malcolm also dipped his head in agreement. "The question is," she continued, "what do we do about it?"

The four officers spent the rest of their lunch break considering their options. None of them had any personal experience with paranormal activities. They relied heavily on Travis' somewhat questionable knowledge on the subject, as well as Malcolm's brief foray into the ship's database which, not surprisingly, contained little useful information. They all agreed that they should concentrate their efforts concerning Robert Watson's spirit during the night shift. Not only had Hoshi seen his ghost at night, but there would be fewer other crewmen around to interfere or get in the way.

They also decided, after quite some discussion, that for the time being, the matter was to be kept between the four of them. They didn't need the rest of the crew wondering if they were space happy; they were having enough trouble believing what they were doing themselves. But Malcolm insisted, and Trip concurred, that if Robert Watson became a threat to the ship, they'd inform the captain immediately.


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Trip and Travis went back to the launch bay after lunch to continue working on the_ Wayfarer's Rest. _Malcolm went off to calibrate a scanner to detect changes in EM fields that they hoped would give them some tangible proof there was something on board _Enterprise_, ghostly or otherwise. Hoshi, the only one of the four officers working a regular duty shift that day, returned to the bridge.

She found that personal communications had arrived in a transmission packet from Starfleet while she'd been at lunch. Mail always perked up the crew, and delivering the letters to the recipients was a duty that she was happy to perform. She began downloading the letters to individual data chips for distribution. About halfway through, she saw that there was a letter for her from her mother.

She loved receiving letters. The slight tinge of homesickness they made her feel was far outweighed by the comfort of hearing from home. But her happy smile faded as she read the letter. One of her brothers, Hikori, had been seriously injured in a hovercar accident. He was in intensive care at a hospital, his prognosis uncertain. The date on the letter was more than a week old. Her mind shied away from the possibility that Hikori could be dead by now. The words on the screen blurred. Hoshi blinked rapidly, trying to clear her eyes of the tears that threatened to spill.

Hikori. He was her favorite brother. Younger than her by two years, he'd always been the brash one, getting into scrapes but then getting out of them with his good-natured charm and easy smile. He was a lovable rake, so different from rest of the staid Sato family. As they'd grown up, it had seemed like Hoshi was always being dragged into Hikori's little escapades. The time they'd ripped up all their mother's freshly planted flowers and dumped buckets of sand in their place in an attempt to make a contemplative garden immediately came to mind. But the simple childishness of their little adventures had been a welcome reprieve from Hoshi's rigidly structured days of classes, practice sessions, and extra tutoring once her language talents had become apparent.

Of all her siblings, Hikori had been the one who'd been the most excited about her posting to _Enterprise_. He'd also been the only one she could tell about her doubts, knowing that he'd provide a sympathetic ear and not offer unsolicited advice. So of course she had asked his advice for that very reason. Without his encouragement, she didn't know if she would have joined Starfleet, and she knew he was proud of her accomplishments once she had.

Hoshi took the data chip with her letter from the slot and pocketed it, then hurriedly finished downloading the rest of the letters. She needed to calm down. There wasn't anything she could do for Hikori, and worrying wouldn't do him, or her, any good.

The captain's ready room was her first delivery stop when all the downloads were complete. Jon was working at his desk when she entered. She'd hoped to turn over his letters and make a quick exit, but he took one look at her face and asked, "What's wrong, Hoshi?"

Hoshi let out a broken sob, a single tear streaking down her face. She managed to get out the news about her brother.

Jon had gotten to his feet while she was talking, and when she finished, he reached out and grasped her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Hoshi," he said softly with a reassuring squeeze of his fingers before he let go. "I'll send a message to Starfleet and ask them to check on Hikori's condition and get back to us on a high-priority channel."

Hoshi smiled gratefully and wiped her cheek. "Thank you, sir. I'm sorry about this," she mumbled with a gesture toward her face.

"Don't worry about it. It was a shock to hear about your brother, I'm sure." He indicated the tote bag with the data chips. "I'll get someone else to take care of this. You take the rest of the day off."

Hoshi opened her mouth to protest but stopped. She seriously doubted she'd be able to concentrate on her duties, at least until she got her emotions under control. "Thank you, sir." She handed over the bag and headed for the door.

"Hoshi?" Jon called after her. When she turned around, he asked, "This wouldn't have anything to do with that little project Malcolm was helping you with earlier?"

Hoshi felt a genuine smile break through her sadness. "No, sir. Not even close."

She turned and exited the ready room, her mood growing somber again. The ghost of Robert Watson really didn't seem important now that she had Hikori to worry about. She made it across the bridge and into the turbolift before another tear trickled down her cheek. The short ride to C deck where her cabin was located didn't allow her time to compose herself, and she didn't want anyone else to see her so upset. Jon had only asked her what was wrong, and she'd practically broken down in front of him; she couldn't handle a lot of prying questions from well-meaning friends right now. She wanted to be alone, but people were bound to stop by her cabin once word got out about her brother. Before the turbolift door could open, she entered a new destination on the control panel. The best place she could think of was the observation lounge on F deck.

* * *

"Travis! Quit gawkin' and start helpin'."

Travis grinned sheepishly. "Sorry. I keep hoping to see or hear something." He handed a screwdriver to Trip, who was taking pieces from the _Wayfarer's Rest'_s engine and checking to see if they needed to be replaced. "Wouldn't it be great to see Robert Watson's ghost like Hoshi did?"

Trip smiled as he set down yet another engine component that was in almost perfect condition. Robert Watson had taken good care of his little ship. "I don't think Hoshi was particularly thrilled about the experience."

"I got that impression too, but I've never seen a ghost," Travis said. "What about you?"

Trip shook his head. "Can't say that I've actually seen one." He paused to cast a glance at the hatchway leading to the living quarters of the ship, then shook himself. He turned a mock frown on Travis. "Now see what you've done? You've got me distracted, worrying about ghosts. We need to be concentrating on what we're doing here, not starting a round of ghost stories."

"Sorry," Travis said. He watched Trip work for a few moments, then asked, "Do you think he's watching what we're doing?"

"Would you knock it off, Travis?" Trip said. At the helmsman's crestfallen expression, Trip added, "He might be watching us, but I seriously doubt he's going to make an appearance." He indicated the metal box on the deck by his feet. "I'm using his tools, which seemed to be the object of that little incident in the cockpit with the cabinet door bangin' open. I think he wants us to work on his ship."

* * *

Hoshi was in luck. No one was in the observation lounge when she arrived. She closed the door and locked it. Normally the room was left open, but when it was locked, it was a sign to others that the occupant or occupants did not wish to be disturbed. She stood in the center of the room with its large observation window looking out under the nacelles, and suddenly was at a loss. She'd held her emotions fairly well in check until she'd reached this refuge. Now that she was here, however, she felt numb. She walked over to the window and, putting both hands on the glass, leaned her head against it. As if by trying so hard earlier to hold them in, the tears now refused to flow. If she could just have a good cry and get it over with, she'd feel better, but it wasn't for quite some time before tears began slow, laborious slides down her cheeks.

She felt helpless, being so far from home, when her brother had gotten into the worst scrape of his life. Her crying was in part due to frustration, she realized, as there was nothing she could do to help Hikori. For all she knew, he might be dead by now. That thought only served to make her cry harder. Then, when the tears were finally exhausted, she was too. She moved over to the couch and sank down on it, staring out the window at the stars as she wished that she was home with her family.

In the dead silence of the room, she felt three soft pats on her shoulder. Someone must have been in the lounge when she'd entered and she hadn't seen them. Embarrassed that one of her fellow crewmates had seen her crying, she turned to see who it was.

But once glance behind her told her she was alone. There was no one there.

Hoshi got to her feet and cautiously backed away from the couch toward the door. She hadn't imagined someone patting her shoulder as if to comfort her. She quickly unlocked the door and let herself out.

* * *

Malcolm was leaving the armory, the newly modified scanner in his hand, when he saw Hoshi come out of the observation lounge doorway farther down the corridor and walk hurriedly in his direction.

"Hoshi?" he asked as she approached and he saw the dried tear tracks on her face. He couldn't recall ever having seen Hoshi cry. Scared, yes, but she'd always remained steady and had done whatever had needed to be done. But crying? Whatever was wrong, it must be bad. "Are you all right?"

She took a deep, ragged breath. "My brother...Hikori...I got a letter from my mother. Hikori's been badly hurt in an accident."

"I'm sorry," Malcolm said. He didn't know what to say next. He never had been very good at comforting other people, and the rebuff he'd received the time he'd tried to comfort Trip after his sister's death still stung.

Hoshi nodded in acknowledgment of his sympathy. "Thanks. But that's not what's freaking me out right now. I went to the observation lounge to be alone and...think about Hikori...and..."

"And what, Hoshi?"

"Something patted me on the shoulder," she said. In a more defiant tone, as if trying to convince him, she continued, "I was sitting there, on the couch, when all of a sudden I felt someone's hand on my shoulder. It patted me three times, like whoever it was was trying to tell me everything was going to be all right. But, Malcolm, I was alone!"

"You're sure?" he asked.

"Positive. It was three distinct taps," she said. "If it had only been one, I might think I'd imagined it. But three?"

"Good point. Come on!" he said, brushing past her.

He dashed down the corridor and into the lounge, Hoshi following in his wake. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, he activated the scanner and began taking readings.

"Anything?" Hoshi asked from where she was standing by the door.

Malcolm shook his head. He held the scanner near the comm panel, taking into account the jump in the strength of the EM field that was to be expected in close proximity to such a device. He slowly moved around the room, holding the scanner at arm's length, seeking out any EM spikes. "Travis says that paranormal entities generate their own highly charged electromagnetic field. I've adjusted this so that I'll have to be on top of anything generating an EM field to get an accurate reading. Otherwise, I'd be getting readings from anything plugged into the EPS grid system." He made a complete circuit of the room, his gaze seldom leaving the scanner's small screen. He ended up where he'd started, by the door next to Hoshi. "As far as I can tell, there's nothing here that's not supposed to be here."

Hoshi let out a gust of air. "Maybe it's because I'm calmer now. I was pretty upset earlier."

Malcolm closed the scanner. "It's understandable that you were upset about your brother," he said kindly.

Hoshi nodded. "I still am, but I think I've got it under control now. That's why I came in here in the first place. To have a quiet place to think and calm down. And then--" She shivered and ran a hand over her face.

"Look on the bright side," Malcolm told her. "You seem to attract the ghost."

"Oh, great!"

"No, really," he said. "When we start actively searching for it tonight, your presence may bring it out."

Hoshi stared at him, then sighed. "Just what I've always wanted to be -- ghost bait."


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

Travis was waiting in the launch bay when the others arrived at 2200 hours that evening. His life-long interest in the paranormal was finally being put to practical use, and, by unspoken assent, he had assumed the role of leader.

He had two scanners. One he handed to Trip with the admonition to keep it operating on "record" at all times to pick up visual or aural phenomena their own senses might not detect. Travis and Hoshi would use the other scanner for the same purpose. They would review the recordings later. "We should stay in pairs," Travis suggested. "That way, no one person will see or hear something without there being a corroborating witness."

"Good idea," Hoshi murmured. "I'm getting tired of being picked on while I'm alone."

Travis was mildly surprised that Hoshi had shown up. Malcolm had taken him aside in the mess hall at dinner and had told him that she'd received word that one of her brothers had been seriously injured in an accident back on Earth. She had to be worried about him. But, from what Malcolm had told him, Hoshi had also had another experience with the ghost of Robert Watson after finding out about her brother's accident. Travis theorized that Hoshi's agitated state had provided the catalyst for that incident. Whatever the reason, Hoshi seemed to attract the ghost, and Travis intended to be with her the next time there was a manifestation.

The possibility of encountering a real ghost was enough to send an undeniable thrill through Travis. He had to remind himself to remain calm. If he was going to be in charge, he had to act like it. He needed to look at things logically. As much as he'd like to believe ghosts existed, he knew they'd have to follow scientific procedures to prove they had an uninvited guest on board.

"Hoshi and I will be one team," Travis said with a reassuring smile for his partner. He turned to Trip and Malcolm. "You two will be outside the _Wayfarer's Rest _taking readings with the scanner Malcolm modified to pick up EM fluctuations. Hoshi and I will be in the ship, trying to provoke the ghost."

"Provoke?" Malcolm asked sharply. "That doesn't sound like a wise thing to do."

"'Provoke' simply means to get a reaction," Travis said. "We'll talk out loud, asking Robert Watson to show himself, or give us a sign that he's here. If that doesn't work, we'll be a little more forceful in asking. It's like goading someone to get them to do what you want." Trip and Malcolm traded a skeptical glance, and Travis hurried on. "Anyway, we'll trade places after an hour. Hoshi and I will come out in the launch bay, and you two will go inside."

"Doesn't sound very complicated," Trip commented.

Travis nodded. "That's true. But you have to have patience. We've already done all the preliminaries. We've checked that there's no other reason for the things that have happened, like the lights going out on us. The power cable and the connection were fine, remember? And Malcolm's scans didn't show any other life forms on the ship."

"What do we do if we get an EM reading?" Trip asked.

"You talk to whatever is making the EM reading fluctuate, even if you don't see anything. EM readings are just a way to prove that something that's not supposed to be here is here. That's what we're looking for, right? Some kind of proof that there's a ghost on board. Once we do that, then we'll figure out what to do about it. Now, all we have to do is shut down all the mechanical and electrical things. Then we'll turn off the lights in the bay and wait."

As Travis walked over to a work table to get the hand torches he'd put there, Malcolm held up his hand. "Wait a minute. We can't shut down life support in here."

"Oh, I don't know, Malcolm," Trip said, scratching his chin. "We could probably shut it down for a couple hours with no detrimental effect. The launch bay's big enough that we don't have to worry about our air supply. Might get a little chilly by the time we're done, though."

"Shutting down life support would eliminate a big source of electromagnetic fields," Travis pointed out.

Malcolm reluctantly agreed, but only after insisting that the grav plating remain on. The group went about shutting down equipment and lights. Then, as Trip and Malcolm began a slow walk around the bay proper by the light of their hand torches, Travis and Hoshi boarded the _Wayfarer's Rest_. Travis headed straight for the cockpit.

"Couldn't we stay in the engine compartment?" Hoshi asked. "Or the living quarters where we could be more comfortable?"

"We could," Travis said, "but several things happened in the cockpit. It's the best place to start."

They clambered into the cockpit, Hoshi glancing around at the fittings. Her hand brushed against the pilot's chair, and Travis saw her recoil. No doubt she'd read T'Pol's report, just as he had. The chair was where the body of Robert Watson had been found.

"Have a seat, Travis," Hoshi said.

Travis didn't particularly care to sit in the chair, either. "Being a gentleman, I'll offer the only seat to you," he said.

"No thanks," Hoshi responded dryly. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather sit on the floor."

They both wound up sitting on the deck. Travis found it difficult to find a comfortable position in the cramped area, and he finally sat with his long legs stretched out under the instrument panel. Hoshi sat crossed-legged on the floor opposite him on the other side of the pilot's chair.

Travis activated the recording scanner as he leaned back against the bulkhead. He hoped the ghost of Robert Watson made an appearance for two reasons. One, it would be fantastic to have an honest-to-goodness real story to tell, one based on his own experiences. And two, if nothing happened, he'd feel like he had let his fellow officers down. That would be worse than any scuttlebutt about how this ghost-hunting expedition, under his direction, had been an utter failure.

"Let's get started, shall we?" he said. He took a deep breath to calm himself and then lifted his head to address the air. "Robert Watson...if you are here, could you give us a sign?"

* * *

"This has got to be one of the silliest things I've ever done," Trip said as he trailed Malcolm around the dark launch bay.

Malcolm, his attention on the EM-calibrated scanner in his hand, nodded in agreement. "I can't think of a better way to track down an alleged ghost, though. Can you?"

Trip shrugged. "You really think there's a ghost on _Enterprise_?"

It was Malcolm's turn to shrug. "I'm not sure what it is, but there's something here. Whether it's a ghost has yet to be determined."

"Spoken like a true security officer," Trip said with a soft chuckle.

They walked the entire perimeter of the launch bay twice, pausing now and then for Malcolm to check the EM readings. The second time they arrived at the base of the ladder leading up to the control room, Malcolm glanced inquiringly at Trip.

"May as well," Trip said, indicating the ladder. "We haven't picked up anything down here."

Malcolm, one hand holding the scanner and the other grasping the rail, climbed the ladder. At the top, he stepped aside to make room for Trip, who was right behind him.

"Anything?" Trip asked. He peered out into the launch bay, the light of his hand-held torch barely making a dent in the gloom.

Malcolm checked the EM-modified scanner and shook his head. "Nothing so far. This is the best place to wait for a time. If anything happens, we'll have a good view of the entire launch bay from here."

Trip grunted in agreement and sat down, letting his legs dangle over the edge of the elevated platform. A moment later, Malcolm sat down next to him.

Some time later, Trip muttered, "Guess I can always watch the movie later on my own, if I want."

Malcolm smiled in the darkness. They'd given up movie night in favor of ghost hunting. But he wasn't nearly as restless as Trip. Malcolm had a more pragmatic view of their endeavor. His instincts were telling him that something was on _Enterprise _that shouldn't be here, and like any security officer worth his salt, he was compelled to find out what it was and whether it was a threat to the ship. If part of that process involved waiting for it to show itself, he could wait as long as it took.

* * *

Travis and Hoshi had been sitting in the darkened cockpit for more than thirty minutes, the silence punctuated every so often by Travis asking the spirit of Robert Watson to show them a sign he was present. So far, nothing had happened except Travis' left leg went to sleep. With a groan, he got to his feet and stood, waiting for the sensation of pins and needles to go away. A heavy sigh came from the other side of the pilot's chair.

"Still awake?" he asked Hoshi.

"Barely," came her reply.

The circulation to his leg restored, Travis did a few deep knee bends and sat down again. "Malcolm told me about your brother. I'm sorry."

Another sigh came from Hoshi's direction. "I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I can't do anything to help him. The captain said he'd contact Starfleet and have them find out more information. Worrying about Hikori won't do any good."

Although her words made sense, she sounded upset. Travis remembered when his father had been sick. He'd gotten news of the illness and had gone for weeks hoping his father would get better, only to find out later that his father had died some time earlier. The sense of loss he'd felt had almost been overwhelmed by his guilt. Somehow, it hadn't seemed right that he'd carried on with his life as usual without knowing his father was gone.

A change in subject might help take both their minds off such morose thoughts. "So, I hear you were in the observation lounge when Robert Watson paid you a visit."

"Yes," Hoshi said. "It was bizarre and yet -- well, comforting in a way."

At Travis' urging, Hoshi told him about the incident, starting with receiving her mother's letter with the bad news about her brother and ending with her feeling three distinct pats on her shoulder when she'd been alone in the observation lounge.

"What were you thinking about at the time?" he asked curiously.

After a few moments, Hoshi said, "I was wishing I was home with my family."

So much for changing the subject, Travis thought. He knew that Hoshi, despite being a Starfleet officer who was away from Earth for long periods, maintained close ties with her family. It was only natural that she wanted to go home.

Travis sucked in his breath as he realized why Hoshi seemed to have been singled out by their ghostly visitor. "Don't you see?" he asked. "You have something in common with Robert Watson. He wanted to go home and be with his family, and so do you."

* * *

"What's that?" Trip asked, shining his hand torch in the direction of the _Wayfarer's Rest _where it sat on the main launch bay deck below them.

"I don't see anything," Malcolm replied.

Trip got to his feet, keeping the beam of his torch aimed at the small craft. Next to him, Malcolm also stood and peered down over the rail. He couldn't see anything unusual in the light of Trip's torch, which was directed at the upper hull of the _Wayfarer's Rest'_s cockpit.

"There!" Trip said, swinging the torch so that the light moved a meter to the left.

Malcolm's breath caught as he saw movement. Whatever it was reminded him of the fog that would occasionally roll in to blanket London. It had that same ethereal quality. But even with life support not operating, there was no reason for fog to be in the launch bay. In a flash, he was down the ladder and on the main deck next to the _Wayfarer's Rest_. He held the modified scanner up toward the slowly undulating form.

"Travis was right," Malcolm murmured as Trip came up next to him. "The EM reading just jumped off the scale. It's giving off some type of energy."

Trip kept his torch trained on the apparition. The insubstantial whatever-it-was remained in position. He cleared his throat and asked, "Are you Robert Watson?"

The shadowy mist slowly faded down into the hull of the _Wayfarer's Rest_.

* * *

Hoshi caught a glimpse of light outside the front viewing window of the cockpit. Trip and Malcolm must be moving around the launch bay. She hoped they were having better luck than she and Travis were. They hadn't heard or seen anything, and sitting around in the dark had only given her more time to think about how worried she was about Hikori.

Her thoughts were still inward when a gasp came from Travis. They'd turned off their hand torches after settling in, and she could just make out his silhouette across the cockpit. "Travis?"

"Up there. By the window," he whispered.

Hoshi turned her head and blinked. The window showed up as slightly lighter than the interior of the cockpit, and she could see something moving there. It didn't really have a shape. It was more like a cloud or a vapor of some sort, an amorphous floating thing blurred around the edges. As she stared at it, she realized she could see through it. Hoshi also realized that she wasn't excited, or even scared -- she was too emotionally drained by the news of her brother.

"Robert Watson, I presume?" she asked.

There was no response from the floating cloud.

Travis spoke up loudly. "If that is you, Robert Watson, what do you want?"

There was no indication that whatever it was had heard him.

"Is there a reason you are here?" Travis asked.

Again there was no response.

"I'm sorry about your family," Hoshi said tentatively, wondering where the idea to say that had come from.

The sound of rapid footsteps came from the living compartment, and Hoshi turned her head in that direction. She could see beams of light waving wildly. Trip and Malcolm must have boarded the _Wayfarer's Rest_, but surely it wasn't time for the teams to switch places.

"It's gone!" Travis said.

Hoshi looked back towards the window. The floating mist was no longer there.

"Travis, Hoshi," called Malcolm from just outside the hatch. The tactical officer poked his head into the cockpit, the light from his torch momentarily blinding the junior officers. "Are you all right?"

"We're fine," Hoshi said as she climbed to her feet, switching on her hand torch. Across the narrow confines of the cockpit, Travis did the same.

Malcolm was studying the interior of the small compartment closely. "We saw something outside--"

"You saw it too?" Travis broke in. "It was outside before it showed up in here?"

Before Malcolm could answer, the main lights in the launch bay came on, followed by the sound of the ventilation system kicking in.

Trip, standing in the living area because there wasn't enough room in the cockpit for him, called out, "Life support just came back on." He led the way back out to the launch bay.

"Do you think it was the ghost of Robert Watson?" Travis asked Hoshi as they hurried through the living quarters and into the engine compartment.

Hoshi was about to reply when she reached the exit and stepped out after Malcolm and Trip. She swallowed what she'd been about to say when she saw who was waiting for them in the launch bay. She almost wished it were the ghost of Robert Watson.

Instead, standing with her hands clasped behind her back, staring disapprovingly at them as one might at misbehaving children, was T'Pol.

* * *

Jon wasn't happy. He'd been woken from a sound sleep by T'Pol with a report that life support and other systems had been shut off in the launch bay. He'd ordered her to check into it and get back to him. When she'd comm'd him fifteen minutes later to tell him four of his senior officers were the culprits and she had insisted that they report to him in person, he became even more aggravated. He'd had just enough time to pull on a pair of sweatpants over his skivvies and splash some water on his face before they'd arrived at his cabin.

Now, after being told an outlandish tale about a ghost, he glared at his officers standing in a line at attention in his quarters. They all looked wide awake, not to mention anxious, as well they should be; they were responsible for him being out of sorts. Obviously, their duties weren't enough to keep them occupied if they were up to some kind of shenanigans in the launch bay at this time of night.

He glanced at T'Pol standing behind them like a strict teacher who'd brought her charges to the principal for discipline. He could understand why she hadn't wanted to tell him what they'd been doing. Ghost hunting, indeed. If it weren't for the fact that he resented his sleep being interrupted, he might have found the situation funny.

"So you took it upon yourselves to shut down life support to a section of the ship, without informing the bridge," he said with more than a trace of irritation. The four officers kept their gazes straight ahead, so Jon paced over to stand in front of Trip, the ranking officer of the group. "Well?"

Trip swallowed. "As chief engineer, I didn't think turning off life support and the other systems for a few hours would cause a problem. And we kind of wanted to keep what we were doin' quiet. Until we had proof. Sir."

Jon exhaled heavily through his nose. "Proof there's a ghost on board."

"Yeah." Trip paused to shoot a glance at Travis. "The ship's systems generate EM fields, and we wanted to eliminate all possible sources of it so that if we did get a reading, which apparently is typical of ghosts, we'd be sure it wasn't something else causing it."

Jon rubbed a hand over his face as he turned away. He thought he'd grasped what Trip had just said, convoluted though it was. "Did you?"

"Did I what, sir?" Trip asked with a frown.

"Get proof there's a ghost!"

"Sort of," Trip hedged. "All four of us saw something. We haven't gone over the recordings yet, and T'Pol's showing up sort of--" He paused to clear his throat. "--scared it off."

"Begging the commander's pardon," Travis spoke up. "We did see something, and we recorded a jump in the EM field. That's typical of a paranormal event."

Jon stared at his ace pilot as alarm overrode his irritation. "So there _is _something on board _Enterprise_." Then the irritation came rushing back. "Why wasn't I informed?"

"That's my doing, I'm afraid, sir," Malcolm said. "Until this evening, I wasn't absolutely sure there was something to report. Hoshi was the only one who had seen it, or some form of it, before tonight. And I'm still not sure it's a threat. I didn't want to bother you until we knew for sure."

Jon glared one last time at his officers before he sat down in a chair. "I want to hear everything -- from the beginning."


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

The next morning, Malcolm and Hoshi sat in the command center, downloading the recordings from the scanners. Both were quiet, their egos still bruised from being called before the captain the night before.

After a time, Malcolm said, "We got off lightly."

Hoshi had to agree. After they had told the captain what they and Trip and Travis had been doing, Jon hadn't seemed so angry at being woken up. Rather, he had been concerned there was a potentially serious situation with an intruder. He'd warned them that if there ever was a time in the future where there was even the remotest possibility of harm to _Enterprise_, he damn well better be told, and then he had ordered them to continue their efforts to find out exactly what it was they'd seen. While Hoshi and Malcolm reviewed the recordings, Trip and Travis were in the launch bay. The captain had had no objection to continuing the work on the _Wayfarer's Rest_ because most of the phenomena they'd experienced had taken place there.

Hoshi had just finished downloading the information from the scanner she and Travis had used when she was paged and told she had a message from Starfleet. She glanced at Malcolm, but he seemed engrossed in what he was doing at a nearby console. She told the officer filling in at communications to send the message to her in the command center. Braced for bad news about Hikori, she read the text-only message, and frowned when she saw it wasn't about her brother.

"Is something wrong?" asked Malcolm.

"No. Starfleet found some distant relatives of Robert Watson on Earth. They've agreed to make arrangements for the body."

Malcolm nodded and returned his attention to his work as she comm'd the captain and relayed the information she'd received.

"One more reason to go home," came Jon's voice over the comm. "We'll set a course back to Earth as soon as we're done mapping this sector of space."

Hoshi's spirits lifted at his words. They would only be here another day or two; the mapping was going more quickly than they'd anticipated. When they got back to Earth, she'd be able to check on Hikori personally, perhaps even spend some time with him and the rest of her family. When she joined Malcolm at his console to start reviewing the recordings, she was in a better frame of mind.

"I thought we'd start with the visual recordings of that thing we saw," he said as she slid into a chair next to him. He scooted over to give her room.

Malcolm and Hoshi peered at the screen, trying every kind of enhancement they knew, to make the cloud-like object more distinct. The flat, two-dimensional image on the screen seemed even more insubstantial than what they'd actually seen. After an hour, Hoshi rubbed her weary eyes. "No matter what we do to it, it looks like mist."

"The only reading I could get was from the EM field it generated," Malcolm noted. "I have no idea what it's made of. It's possible it's pure energy, I suppose." He blinked several times. "Let's give our eyes a break, shall we, and listen to the audio for a while?"

To make the task go faster, Hoshi listened through an earpiece to the recording she and Travis had made, while Malcolm listened to the one taken by Trip. Both audio recordings were also represented as graphs on screens that showed abrupt peaks whenever a sound registered. For the first half of Hoshi's recording, there were long stretches of silence, with a corresponding flat line on the graph, after each time Travis had asked the ghost to show itself. Then the recording reached the point where she had been telling Travis about her experience in the observation lounge, and he had asked her what she was thinking about.

_"I was wishing I was home with my family."_

Hoshi stopped the recording and replayed that part. Her sensitive ears heard some noise besides her voice, but she couldn't make it out. She looked at the screen displaying the graphic and saw there were two bands instead of the usual one. She adjusted the signal to separate the bands. On the first band, she heard only her voice.

She played the other band. It wasn't clear, but with a little refinement, she was able to discern what she thought were words. One hand to her earpiece, her brow furrowed in concentration, she listened to it again. It couldn't be background noise; they'd shut everything off in the launch bay. She was sure it was another voice, male to judge by its timbre. Could the scanner have picked up part of a conversation between Trip and Malcolm outside the _Wayfarer's Rest_? She made one more adjustment, listened intently, and turned to Malcolm, who sat hunched in a chair with his own earpiece.

"Listen to this," she said. As he pulled his earpiece out, she put the audio on external speakers.

_"Home... Go home."_

Malcolm shifted in his chair. "That doesn't sound like any of us," he said.

"Let me check something," Hoshi said. She keyed some commands into the console and played the audio portion of one of Robert Watson's last logs. She entered a few more commands and ran a comparison with the new voice. "According to the computer analysis, these voices match," she told Malcolm quietly, but she could see in his eyes that he hadn't needed the computer's confirmation. He'd already realized they'd heard a dead man speaking as she'd played one recording right after the other.

* * *

For the next two days, nothing happened. There were no more ghostly apparitions, no unheard voices picked up on surveillance devices Malcolm had set up in the launch bay, no missing tools or moved objects.

Jon, seated in his command chair on the bridge and ready to give the order to return to Earth, was glad to be going home. He was reserving judgment about what had happened to his senior officers. Maybe it had been a ghost, maybe it hadn't. But they had insisted that there was something in addition to the regular crew on board, and he'd learned to trust their instincts. Unfortunately, they hadn't been able to come up with a definite answer. _Enterprise _was due for a thorough maintenance inspection when they returned to Earth; maybe that would turn up something.

"All charting has ceased," T'Pol said from her science station. "Scanners have been recalibrated for standard operational settings."

Jon nodded. He leaned forward. "Take us home, Travis. Warp 3."

"Aye, sir," the helmsman said. He input commands at his console, and _Enterprise _leaped to respond--

--only to falter badly. Jon gripped the armrests on his chair as the ship lurched violently and came to a dead stop. "Travis! What happened?" he snapped.

"I don't know, sir," came the tense reply. Travis had been thrown forward against his console. He shoved himself back, holding himself up with one hand while the other worked the controls.

"There are fluctuations in the warp core," T'Pol called out, referring to readings at her console.

"Inertial dampeners were unable to compensate for the abrupt drop out of warp," said Malcolm from his spot at tactical. "We're lucky we all aren't smears on the forward viewscreen."

The ship seemed to right itself as the inertial dampeners caught up. Jon relaxed his grip and punched a button on the comm panel on his chair's arm. "Trip! I thought everything was ready for warp speed?"

"It was, Cap'n," Trip's voice came from Engineering. "The best I can make out is that it's a problem with one of the plasma injectors."

"How long will it take to fix?"

"Not long. I'll run a diagnostic on the injector and--" Trip broke off, and Jon could hear someone talking in the background. Then Trip's voice came back. "Cap'n? The injector has to be replaced."

"We have spares, don't we?" Jon asked, leaning back in his chair as his adrenaline rush started to subside. Unexpected equipment failures were rare, but they weren't unheard of.

"Cap'n, that's not what I meant. The injector...the reason we have to replace it...it's not there any more. It just -- disappeared!"

Jon traded a glance with T'Pol, who raised an eyebrow. "Things don't just disappear," Jon said.

"I'm tellin' ya, Cap'n -- it's gone. We do have spares, though."

"What about impulse?" he asked.

There was a long pause on the other end of the comm line, as if Trip was checking something. A moment later, the engineer's came through. "It should be all right."

Jon closed the connection and looked at Travis at the helm. "Let's try this again. Full impulse on the same heading."

"Aye, sir," Travis responded, and entered the commands. "Full impulse."

Jon slowly relaxed as nothing untoward happened. He let out a long exhalation. "Well, at least we're moving in the right direction."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than an alarm sounded from the helm console.

"Impulse is offline," Travis reported, turning in his seat to look at Jon with a puzzled expression.

At her station, T'Pol checked some readings. "Confirmed."

Before Jon could contact Engineering, the comm panel on his armrest beeped, followed by Trip's voice. "Sir, you're not gonna believe this."

"Something's wrong with the impulse engine," Jon stated flatly.

"Yeah. I can't figure it out," Trip responded. "Both engines were in perfect condition. Nothing like this should have happened. Talk about a coincidence!"

"Get on it," Jon ordered. "I want to know why both 'perfect' engines suddenly conked out." He stabbed the button to close the channel. He took a deep breath, trying to control his frustration. In front of him at the helm, he noticed the stiff set of Travis' shoulders. "It's not your fault, Travis."

Travis turned slightly in his chair to look at back at him, his expression anxious. "I know, sir. I just can't help thinking that the spirit of Robert Watson isn't going to be pleased."

Jon grimaced. He'd been wondering how long it would take after Trip's announcement that the plasma injector had disappeared before someone brought up the ghost. But they hadn't proved or disproved its existence, only that strange things had been occurring for which they had no explanation. He glanced at T'Pol, whose subtly disdainful expression was telling him exactly what she thought of ghosts. He shifted his gaze to communications where Hoshi sat with a carefully neutral expression. Of course she'd be upset by the delay; they still hadn't heard how her brother was doing.

Sitting in his command chair wasn't accomplishing anything. He got to his feet and said to T'Pol, "I'll be in Engineering."

* * *

The Engineering department was in an uproar when Jon arrived. Trip was shouting orders, one after another, to his crew. Jon had calmed down on the turbolift ride to Engineering, but it seemed his chief engineer had gone from incredulous to downright angry in the meantime.

"Trip," he said, pulling the man aside. "What's going on?"

"Aw, Cap'n!" Trip ran a hand through his hair. "We got a replacement plasma injector out of stores, but something's wrong with it. I don't know what. Rostov is off getting yet another one. And we still don't know what's wrong with the impulse engine. Everything checks out -- it just won't work. And to top it off..." Trip scowled. "...I can't find my toolbox."

Jon would have laughed had the situation not been so serious. He'd been told about the missing microcaliper, and he personally thought that either Trip had forgotten he'd left it in the_ Wayfarer's Rest'_s cockpit, or that Travis had moved it there as a joke and wouldn't admit it. "You didn't leave your toolbox in the launch bay, did you?"

"No, I didn't," Trip said indignantly. "I brought it back here yesterday because I needed my tools when we checked out the engines before going back to Earth. I haven't been back to the launch bay since." Trip started toward the exit.

Jon followed. "Where are you going?"

"I can't do anything until Rostov gets back with another injector," the engineer said over his shoulder. "I'm going to check the launch bay, just in case."

A few minutes later, both men strode into the launch bay. The_ Wayfarer's Rest _was as Trip had left it a day ago. A quick search outside the small vessel turned up no sign of his missing toolbox. Trip muttered something about memory and not being that old as he stepped into the engine compartment; Jon wisely held his tongue as he followed.

"Everybody on my staff knows not to mess with my toolbox," Trip griped as he stood in the center of the engine compartment after checking all the nooks and crannies and not finding what he was looking for. "So it wasn't one of them who made off with it."

Jon was opening his mouth to suggest they go back to Engineering when a loud clang came from farther inside the little ship.

Trip shot Jon a startled glance and said, "Here we go again." He hurried into and through the living quarters to the cockpit. Jon was right behind him.

Trip entered the cockpit, and as he moved to one side to make room for Jon, he said, "I think somebody's tryin' to tell us something."

Jon followed his gaze. A cabinet door on the bulkhead was open, and inside he could see two toolboxes. One he recognized as Trip's, and from where he was standing, he could see the initials "RW" on the handle of the other.

* * *

Jon immediately called a meeting of his senior staff, minus Trip, who had returned to Engineering. As the officers gathered around the situation table, he asked, "What the hell is going on?"

None of the officers replied except T'Pol, who said, "I do not know."

Jon glared at her. "Not the answer I want to hear. Toolboxes just don't move by themselves. And they certainly don't open cabinet doors by themselves."

"That's almost exactly what happened to Trip and me the other day," Malcolm said. "I still can't explain it."

Travis, Jon noted, was avoiding making eye contact with him. "I know what some of you are thinking. You think it's the ghost of Robert Watson. But if he wants to go home, why is he is causing all this?" Jon asked with a wave of his hand, indicating _Enterprise _in general.

The helmsman shook his head. "I don't know, sir. After Hoshi and Malcolm found his voice on the recordings, saying he wanted to go home..." Travis trailed off uncertainly.

"It might just be one giant, bizarre coincidence that all this is happening," Jon said. He held up a hand to stop T'Pol who had taken a deep breath that he recognized as the beginning of an argument from her. "But after finding Trip's toolbox where we did... The sooner we find out what's causing these things, the better, because now it's interfering with the operation of this ship."

In the strained silence that followed Jon's declaration, he was paged. He answered it at the comm panel on the bulkhead next to the situation table.

"Cap'n, we have another replacement plasma injector installed, and all the diagnostics check out," came Trip's voice. "The warp engine should be good to go."

"It's about time," Jon said. "We'll get underway at once." He closed the channel, indicated that Travis should return to his station, and strode to his command chair. The other officers also returned to their stations.

"Let's try this again," Jon said as he sat down. "Travis, ease us up to warp 3."

"Warp 3. Aye, sir," Travis said.

Jon held his breath as _Enterprise _responded, going to warp exactly as she should. As the stars became elongated streaks of light zipping by on the viewscreen, Jon slowly let his breath out. Maybe the trouble with the engines _had _been a coincidence--

A high-pitched alarm sounded at T'Pol's station. He looked over to see her staring at her console in as much surprise as a Vulcan could display.

"Now what?" he asked irritably.

"Life support is offline," she said.

Jon fumed as he drummed his fingers on his armrest. He was willing to bet there was no cause that could be found for life support going out without warning. It seemed to him that something didn't want them to get underway. First the engines, now life support. If they got this problem fixed, what would go wrong next? An explosion in the armory? Sudden decompression of the ship?

Jon got to his feet. "Travis, all stop."

Travis entered the appropriate commands. Jon waited. He didn't think it would take long. He wasn't disappointed.

As soon as _Enterprise_'s forward progress was halted, T'Pol reported, "Life support has been restored."

Jon reached over and used the comm panel on his chair to contact Engineering. "Trip, tell me what you did to restore life support."

"I didn't do anything, Cap'n," came the reply. "I was about to ask what you did up there."

Jon cut the channel. He began to pace slowly around the bridge. "All right, people. For the sake of argument, let's say we do have the ghost of Robert Watson on board." A distinct sniff came from the direction of T'Pol's science station, but Jon ignored her. "Hoshi's seen what might be his ghost, and was touched by it. We've had disappearing and reappearing tools and toolboxes, and a cloud-like thing four of you saw in the launch bay. We even have a recording that some of you believe is Robert Watson's spirit telling us he wants to go home." He paused, gazing around at his crew members. "Well, we're trying to get back home, but something won't let us. What are we doing wrong?"

There was no answer, but Hoshi was suddenly busy at her console. Jon stepped over and asked, "What is it?"

"Robert Watson's home..." she said. She keyed in some commands and called up information, quickly reading what appeared on a screen at her station. "He has relatives on Earth, but..." She nodded as if confirming something. "I don't think Robert Watson considered Earth his home. His wife and child died on Vega, and that's where they are buried."


	11. Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

_Enterprise _was moving, not in the direction of Earth, but for Vega. No unexplainable things happened until Jon, to test the theory that something wanted them to go to Vega, ordered a random course alteration. Within five minutes of the course change, the shipboard temperature dropped by twenty degrees. Jon, not willing to risk a more serious calamity, ordered them back on course for Vega, and the temperature soon returned to its usual comfortable level.

Travis was of the opinion that, having successfully communicated exactly what it wanted -- to go to the colony -- the spirit of Robert Watson was content to let things be. As he told his fellow ghost hunters at dinner in the mess hall the evening before they were to arrive at Vega, the engine and life support outages had been the ghost's way of telling them they had misinterpreted where he had wanted to go. Once they reached Vega, Robert Watson would be home, and his spirit would finally be able to rest in peace.

"What about my toolbox?" Trip asked. "Moving it to his ship didn't tell us he wanted to go back to Vega."

"I think it did," Travis said. "Robert Watson was on his way to Vega when he died. He moved your toolbox to tell you that, if _Enterprise _wasn't going to take him there, you should keep working on his ship so he could do it himself."

Malcolm, seated across the table from Travis, snorted. "That's rather far-fetched. A ghost piloting a ship?"

Travis shrugged. "We'll never know because we're taking him back to Vega."

Malcolm still had trouble believing that a ghost had caused _Enterprise_'s malfunctions. Technology couldn't definitively prove something was of a paranormal nature. It could only disprove something in that regard, such as when a sudden cold spot is found to be the result of a localized breakdown in the heating system. That didn't mean the incidents on board had been caused by a ghost. It could be something that couldn't be explained at their current level of technology. What if it was an alien entity they couldn't detect? Malcolm mentally scolded himself. He was becoming as bad as Travis, but instead of expecting to see a ghost around every corner, he was anticipating an unknown alien.

Next to Malcolm, Hoshi had been brooding throughout the meal. She hadn't taken part in the conversation. She pushed back from the table, her meal only half eaten, and said she was going to turn in early.

All three men watched her leave the mess hall.

"She still hasn't heard about her brother," Trip said.

"She was relieved to hear we were going back to Earth," Malcolm observed, "so this detour to Vega isn't helping any."

* * *

Doctor Phlox had been disappointed to miss out on the ghost-hunting activities, which he found all very intriguing. Many humans believed in an after-life, but apparently sometimes the departed got stuck and couldn't get there. There was nothing similar in Denobulan culture. If deceased Denobulans did come back as ghosts, he doubted anyone would notice. There were far too many vivacious, outgoing, noisy people crowding his planet to be able to be aware of something like ghosts.

In anticipation of their arrival at Vega in a few hours, Phlox was preparing Robert Watson's body for burial -- not that there was much to do. It was mostly a matter of moving the body from the morgue to sickbay, where he could properly place it in a coffin. After that, the coffin would be taken to the launch bay, where it would be loaded on a shuttlepod for the trip down to Vega.

He'd just sealed the coffin when the doors to sickbay slid open. One look at Hoshi's downcast expression as she entered was enough to tell him that she was depressed. "What brings you to sickbay, Hoshi?" he asked.

"I'm on my break from the bridge." She gave him a small smile, one that he recognized as a human attempt at masking a person's true feelings, before looking away.

Something was troubling her. That she had come to sickbay was an indication that she wanted to talk about whatever it was, even if she didn't realize that herself. He'd give her some time, and if she didn't volunteer more information, he'd ask. For the moment, he merely smiled sympathetically at her.

He saw her gaze come to rest on the coffin, only to slide away. He remembered that one of her brothers had been injured recently. Seeing the coffin probably only reinforced her worry. Her brother's injury was of a serious nature, if he recalled correctly.

"I couldn't stand it on the bridge any more," she said, breaking the silence. "I kept watching the indicator light for incoming messages that might be..."

"...about your brother," Phlox finished for her when she fell silent. "That's understandable. You look tired. Please, have a seat. Have you been sleeping well?"

Hoshi shook her head as she sat on one of the biobeds. "Between Hikori and..." She gestured toward the coffin. "I haven't had a decent night's sleep in a week."

"Let me get you a mild sleep aid. You can take it before you go to bed tonight, and it should help you get an uninterrupted eight hours' sleep." Phlox walked over to a cabinet, found the medication, and turned back to Hoshi. Even from several meters away, he noticed the change in her. Instead of being hunched with her shoulders drawn in, she was sitting straight up, her body stiff. She was staring at Robert Watson's coffin. "Hoshi?"

"If you've got a medical scanner handy, I suggest you use it," Hoshi said quietly, not taking her eyes from the coffin. "Something just touched me."

Phlox immediately took the med scanner he customarily carried with him from his pocket and turned it on as he approached her. "Where were you touched?" he asked.

"My hair."

Phlox held the scanner near Hoshi's head. "I'm not registering anything." He pushed a button on the scanner to change the type of scan, and tried again. "Still nothing." As he changed the setting one more time, he asked, "What did it feel like? A tap? A poke?"

Hoshi watched him anxiously as he began the third scan. "No, it was more like a caress. It reminded me of how my grandmother used to comfort me when I was little after I'd had done something like scrape my knee. She'd run her hand over the hair on my head once or twice as she'd soothe me." She flinched slightly. "It just happened again."

Phlox's gaze was riveted to the small screen on the scanner. "The scan I just took was in thermal imaging mode." He froze the image and turned the scanner so that she could see the screen. "There's you, and something else."

On the tiny screen, Hoshi recognized her shape as defined in shades of red, yellow, green, and blue denoting heat coming from her body. But there was also a spot of yellowish red near her head.

Phlox pulled back and scanned her again. "Hmmm. It's gone, whatever it was." He glanced around sickbay as he shut off the scanner. "I can call security, if you like."

"What?" Hoshi asked distractedly, then seemed to gather herself. "No, it's all right. I'm not scared. In fact, it was rather comforting." She smiled. "I haven't thought of my grandmother in a long time."

"If you're sure...?"

"I'm sure." Hoshi hopped off the biobed with a little laugh. "It's funny. I feel a lot better now. Thanks." She headed for the exit, her brisk gait a contrast to her dragging steps when she'd walked in.

Phlox looked around sickbay after the doors slid shut behind Hoshi. She obviously had been in need of solace when she'd come to see him. He'd been more than happy to try to help, but apparently someone -- or something -- had done so before he could.

He pursed his lips and activated the medical scanner again in thermal imaging mode. A few minutes later, he shut off the scanner. As he'd told Hoshi, whatever it was was no longer in evidence. Still, he had the original thermal scan of something that was shaped suspiciously like a hand next to Hoshi's head. Maybe he could get a paper out of this.

* * *

T'Pol privately thought her crewmates were a little unbalanced, but that was normal for humans. Their undisciplined mental processes could easily be tricked or misled. Their current preoccupation with ghosts was a good example. The Vulcan Science Directorate had no official position on ghosts. Unlike time travel, which the VSD had determined was not possible, it hadn't even considered the possibility of ghosts because, as every Vulcan knew, there was no such thing.

She could not deny, however, that strange things had been occurring on _Enterprise_. Like her crewmates, she had no logical explanation. That the strange incidents had ceased once a course for Vega had been set was curious, if only for its coincidental nature. More disturbing was that a number of the incidents could have caused harm to _Enterprise _and its crew. Perhaps, as the captain believed, a thorough maintenance inspection would uncover the true cause.

She left her science station to inform the captain of their arrival at Vega. She found him in his ready room, studying maps of the colony that he had pulled from the ship's database.

"The colony wasn't that big. I think I've found the only cemetery they had," Jon told her as he downloaded the map of the only large settlement onto a data padd. "Is everything ready?"

"Shuttlepod One is ready for departure as soon as we are in orbit. I assume that you will preside at some type of ceremony at the cemetery?"

Jon nodded as he got to his feet. "Something brief but respectful. Then I have to figure out what to tell Robert Watson's relatives back on Earth. Somehow I don't think they'll buy that his ghost made us take his body back to Vega."

"Neither will Starfleet, although logically and aesthetically, it is appropriate to lay him to rest with his immediate family on Vega."

Jon paused on his way to the door to look at her. "It almost sounds like you've changed your mind about ghosts being real."

"I have not," T'Pol said firmly.

"You know," Jon said, "this whole situation has given me a lot to think about. For one thing, you said there are no ghosts on Vulcan, but I think you're wrong."

One human questioning a belief of her entire species was hardly worth rebutting. Besides, he might be teasing her, something he did on occasion. She had learned that the best thing to do in such a situation was either to ask for clarification or to not respond at all. She decided on the latter in this instance, but her lack of a response had no effect.

"You're forgetting one thing," Jon said, his hand poised over the control panel to the door. "I had Surak's katra in my head. His physical body is long gone, but his spirit was alive and well."

"That is not the same thing," T'Pol said.

"Isn't it?" he asked as he opened the door. "Seems to me that both Surak and Robert Watson had something in common. They didn't finish what they wanted to accomplish, and they both communicated that."

T'Pol again had no reply as she followed Jon out of the ready room. The captain had said that he'd had a lot to think about. Now she did as well.

* * *

Jon's gaze was caught by the view of Vega on the main screen as he stepped onto the bridge. It was an Earth-like planet, with two large green and brown continents nestled in the shimmering blue of oceans. A scattering of white clouds dotted the atmosphere. He could understand why this planet had been chosen by humans as a place to establish a colony.

His appreciation of the sight didn't last long. He wasn't sure he wanted this diversion to Vega to end their mysterious malfunctions. Despite teasing T'Pol on the subject, he had a hard time believing they had a ghost on board. If, after the return of Robert Watson's body to Vega, they had no more unexplained malfunctions, it could still be chalked up to coincidence. What was worse, he wondered -- believing something unknown had forced them to come here, or acting on that supposition if it was in error? There was also the matter of his report to Starfleet. He'd have to be careful how he worded it, or he could end up permanently assigned to a desk job -- or a padded cell.

He couldn't dispute the feeling that what they were doing was right. A man should be laid to rest with his family. Robert Watson had tried so desperately to return to his home that it could be construed as his final wish. Jon had already decided that he would emphasize that point in his report to Starfleet.

"T'Pol, you have the bridge," he said. "Travis, Malcolm, and Hoshi, let's go." The two men immediately got to their feet, turning over their stations to relief crewmen. The communications officer, however, remained at her post. "Hoshi?"

She looked up from her console as if her mind had been a million miles away. "Sir?"

"Are you were coming with us?"

He saw her hesitate, her gaze flicking to the section of her console that would signal an incoming transmission. He knew she'd been maintaining a watch; she'd even pulled double shifts as she waited for Starfleet to send news of her brother. He wouldn't be surprised if she didn't want to be part of the funeral detail. Then, with a barely audible sigh, she got to her feet, motioning to a crewman to take over her station.

* * *

No one said much as Travis piloted the shuttlepod to the surface. Jon and Malcolm were at the auxiliary control panels immediately behind him, and Hoshi and Trip were seated on one of the bench seats behind them. The coffin was resting on the other. At the very back, two MACOs sat on small jump seats.

Travis did a slow flyover of the abandoned settlement. It reminded him of one of the Old West towns in films he'd seen on movie nights, except these buildings were pre-fab instead of handmade from wood planks. But the same dusty, desolate air hung over the place, despite the profusion of vegetation.

Following the captain's directions, Travis set the 'pod down at the cemetery. The small area was surrounded by what had once been a white picket fence. Now, its paint all but peeled away, sections had fallen down in the tall grass. As he shut down the engine, he glanced out the front window and could see several tombstones standing in wobbly formation on the other side of what was left of the fence. The whole place couldn't be much bigger than the mess hall, he estimated, but then, there couldn't be many people buried in the cemetery. The colony hadn't been here very long before the remaining residents had packed up and gone back to Earth.

Trip opened the hatch. Warm air immediately swirled into the 'pod. At a word from Jon, Malcolm and the two MACOs stepped out. Within a minute, Malcolm returned, having found the graves of Robert Watson's wife and child. The four men gathered around the coffin, hefted it up, and carried it out of the shuttlepod, Hoshi trailing behind. The small procession made its way to a single gravestone in the shade of a towering tree, where the MACOs were already digging a rectangular hole.

Travis noticed that Hoshi was becoming increasingly restless as the grave digging progressed. He sidled over to her. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "I feel like I'm forgetting something."

"Did you leave something back on the ship?" Travis asked.

"No." She looked over her shoulder at the shuttlepod where it was parked outside the cemetery grounds. She shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe being in a cemetery is getting to me."

Travis glanced around. He wasn't getting any bad vibes. The cemetery, in daylight at least, appeared to be a pleasant, restful place.

The MACOs made short work of digging the grave. When they were finished, they stepped back, put down their shovels, and stood a respectful distance away. Jon, Trip, Malcolm and Travis once again took up the coffin, using ropes to lower it into the grave. Then Jon took a small book from one of his pockets, opened it to a marked page, and began to read.

Although Travis was standing at attention, his mind wandered. He'd lived almost his entire life in space. The Boomer cargo ships like the one he'd grown up on were small communities where the loss of even one life was keenly felt. But the death of the man they were burying seemed particularly tragic. He'd died alone, unable to be with his family at a time when they'd needed him. The sound of a soft impact jerked his attention back. The captain had thrown a handful of dirt on the coffin lid. One after the other, the officers followed suit.

As they stepped away from the grave to allow the MACOs to fill it, Jon turned to his officers. "It will be a few minutes before we can leave. Why don't we take a look around?"

Trip and Malcolm readily agreed, and the three senior officers moved off toward the town. Travis was about to join them when he realized Hoshi was staying behind, watching the grave being filled in.

"Are you sure you're all right, Hoshi?" he asked after the others were out of earshot.

Hoshi was staring morosely at the grave. "Yes, but I have this feeling..." She suddenly turned and walked to the shuttlepod.

Both curious and concerned, Travis followed. Hoshi entered the shuttlepod and sat down at one of the auxiliary consoles, so Travis took the seat opposite. He watched as she opened a channel to _Enterprise_. Maybe she was going to have someone check on whatever it was she thought she forgot.

"_Enterprise_," came the voice of T'Pol from the comm system's speaker.

Travis saw Hoshi bite her lip. He half expected her to cut the channel without saying anything. But she swallowed and said, "This is Ensign Sato."

When Hoshi fell silent, T'Pol asked, "Is there a problem, Ensign?"

"Ah, no. I...I just wanted to make sure that my replacement at communications isn't having any difficulty."

Travis recognized an obvious lie when he heard one, and so apparently could T'Pol. "Ensign Meeker is well-qualified on this equipment. He has had no difficulty that I can discern. Your concern is unnecessary."

"Ah, well, thanks," Hoshi stuttered.

Before Hoshi could sign off, however, T'Pol spoke again. "A message from Starfleet has arrived since the shuttlepod departed. It concerns your brother."

Suddenly tense, Hoshi said, "Yes?"

"Your brother is doing well and is expected to make a full recovery."

Hoshi let out a long exhalation and sagged in the chair.

"Ensign?" came T'Pol's voice.

Hoshi roused herself. "Thanks, Commander."

"That's good news," Travis said after Hoshi closed the channel.

"Yes, it is," she agreed. "And the strange thing is that I feel like that's what I came back to the shuttlepod for. It's like something was compelling me to contact _Enterprise_."

"Robert Watson's spirit?" Travis suggested.

Hoshi laughed. "A few days ago, I would have thought you were crazy if you'd said that."

Travis leaned forward in the chair. "But it is possible, don't you think?"

"That you're crazy?" Hoshi asked with another laugh.

Seeing her so happy let Travis know just how upset she'd been the last few days, and he hadn't realized how much he had missed her normally upbeat, cheery nature until now. It was good to see her in better spirits. He grinned at his unspoken pun. "No, that it was Robert Watson who was urging you to come back to the shuttlepod so you could get that message."

"I'll be the first to admit that there are a lot of things out here that we don't understand. It looked like Robert Watson that night in the corridor. I'm sure of that. But whether it was really a ghost or not, I don't know." She shrugged. "Whatever it was, it seemed to go out of its way to comfort me. I have to appreciate that."

Travis glanced towards the hatch. He could hear the others returning from their exploration of the abandoned settlement; evidently very little remained to look at. "I hope what we did today meets with Robert Watson's approval."

Hoshi gave him a smile. "How could it not?" She rose to her feet and headed for the hatch.

As they stepped out of the shuttlepod, Jon called to them. "We're about ready to leave, but Trip thought of one more detail that needs to be taken care of."

The group returned to the cemetery, where the MACOs, having finished filling in the grave, were now gathering up the ropes. Trip pulled a small cutting tool from a pocket and knelt on the ground before the tombstone. With precise movements, he etched the name of Robert Watson next to that of his wife and child on the hard rock surface. When he finished, he ran his fingers over the letters, pocketed the tool, and got to his feet. To Jon he said, "Now we can leave, sir."

Travis trailed behind as they returned to the shuttlepod. At the entrance to the cemetery, he looked back. A ray of sunlight came through the leaves of the tree sheltering the grave and, for a moment, it highlighted the name that, a minute ago, hadn't been there.

A chill ran up Travis' spine, and as he turned back to catch up with the others, he heard a sound like a heartfelt sigh whispering through the branches of the tree.

EPILOGUE 

_Enterprise _returned to Earth. Not a single, inexplicable incident occurred on the voyage. A thorough maintenance inspection in space dock turned up no cause for the malfunctions.

Most of the crew were able to take shore leave during the layover at Earth. Travis went with Hoshi to visit her brother, who had been released from the hospital and was recuperating at home. To Travis' surprise, he found he much in common with Hikori, such as their tendency to be injured while participating in sports.

Trip stayed on board to oversee the maintenance work. But he and Malcolm also managed to finish up the renovations to the _Wayfarer's Rest_. By the time _Enterprise _was ready to depart on its next mission, Robert Watson's little ship had been moved to the spaceflight museum at Starfleet and given a place of honor. It still rests there today.

THE END


End file.
